


Blood, Ink and Tears

by opal_earrings



Series: Ink (Platonic Soulmate AU) [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Canonical Character Death, Car Accidents, Fainting, Fluff, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hostage Situations, Hurt Peter Parker, Kid Peter Parker, Kidnapping, Missions Gone Wrong, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Platonic Soulmates, Presumed Dead, Sick Peter Parker, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Whump, can i get an F for Ben, chapters will get whumpier as they go on, don't become a superhero to deal with the loss of a loved one kids, emphasis on platonic, gratuitous emotional manipulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:20:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 30,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25022302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/opal_earrings/pseuds/opal_earrings
Summary: Platonic soulmate AU wherein anything written on your soulmate’s skin appears on yours, too.Tony has long since accepted that he doesn’t have a soulmate, but all that changes when a kid named Peter’s writing begins to appear on his skin.Or: five times someone else wrote to Tony on Peter’s skin, and the one time no-one did.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: Ink (Platonic Soulmate AU) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2142672
Comments: 221
Kudos: 1070
Collections: god tier spider-man fics, love of marvel





	1. May Parker

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and thank you for clicking on my fic! I want to start by emphasizing that this is a platonic soulmate au and is not intended to be read romantically. Secondly, outside of Tony and Peter, no-one's soulmates are going to be specified, so feel free to imagine everyone else's soulmate as being whoever you please. Also if you're confused about the rules of how this particular soulmate au works, please let me know and I'll clarify.
> 
> Other than that, happy reading! <3

Tony Stark had long since accepted that he didn’t have a soulmate.

The media called it comeuppance. Their scathing (though not necessarily inaccurate) analysis of his character implied he simply didn’t deserve one, while various articles accused him of having unintentionally killed his soulmate with his weapons, like some twisted act of judgement from the universe. The more cynical articles accused him of not having the capacity to care so deeply about another person as to prioritize them over himself.

Tony mostly tried to ignore the discourse surrounding his soulmate, programing JARVIS to block the articles and walking away from interviewers that crossed a line. But sometimes, when he was drunk and didn’t remember how much it had hurt last time, he forced his way past JARVIS’s firewalls.

Their assessments of his character were so accurate that Tony couldn’t help but believe what he read.

Rhodey and Pepper, however, tended to be more optimistic for him.

“It’ll be your kid, Tones, I’m sure of it,” said Rhodes after one particularly heartfelt, drunken outburst on Tony’s part. “My sister never had a soulmate and thought she never would, but then her daughter’s writing started appearing on her arm. They’re as close as you can’t believe now.”

Pepper had never been one to overstep the line of professionalism, but when pressed, she also had similar stories.

“It’s really not uncommon. Plenty of people’s soulmates are their kids.”

Both Rhodey and Pepper’s arms were forever decorated in writing. A constant stream of jokes, questions, and life updates from people they’d not yet met, whose full names they didn’t even know, because the ink wouldn’t sink in if you wrote anything that could give away your identity. You couldn’t cheat fate like that—you just had to wait until you stumbled upon one another.

At least Happy didn’t give him false hope, though his skin was never clear of ink either.

And it was a false hope, because the reassurance that _it’ll probably be your kid_ had never done much to comfort Tony. He was many things, but a family man was he not. He’d never even been in a committed relationship; he preferred a constantly rotating string of models, reporters, and actresses to keep him from getting too lonely. And he wasn’t sure if he even _liked_ kids. He’d never really spent much time around anyone younger than eighteen (not even when he, himself, had been a child) and by now he just avoided children on principle.

So, begrudgingly—whether due to his character, like the media said, or simply due to sheer dumb misfortunate—Tony accepted that he didn’t have a soulmate. The universe had, for whatever reason, chosen not to give him one. Tony had made peace with it.

At least he wasn’t tethered to any one person, Tony reasoned. He was free to lead his life as he wished, doing what he wanted to do and going where he wanted to go without worrying about whether or not this path would lead him any closer to finding his soulmate.

But he couldn’t help but wonder what it felt like when words appeared on your skin. Or how it felt to know that someone was out there, the perfect soul to complement your own. How it felt to speak to them.

Fate had decided he would never find out.

He’d never had so much as an accidental smudge of ink appear on his skin, and no matter how generic the messages he wrote, they refused to sink in. There just wasn’t anyone for the words to go to. Tony was alone.

So he spent the time he could have been talking to his soulmate in his lab. Tinkering, building and, eventually, talking to JARVIS, who filled the place of the soulmate the universe had decided he didn’t deserve.

At the age of thirty-six, he’d long since given up hope of being proved wrong.

***

The bass of the rock music playing over the lab speakers was loud enough to rattle the rogue screw lying on the floor by Tony’s head. His upper half was rolled underneath one of his many cars, and he had spent the majority of the afternoon tinkering with the brakes.

And what an afternoon it had been, alone with his thoughts and the headache inducing music. He’d missed a meeting with Stane—it probably wasn’t anything important—and Pepper had been by twice with paperwork for him to blindly scrawl his signature on before sliding back under the car. Other than that, he hadn’t seen anyone.

It was in the lull between two songs that Tony first felt it: a tickling across his left wrist.

Irritated, he scratched at it without looking, but the feeling persisted. It took him an embarrassingly long moment to realize what it was he was feeling.

It was the tickle of a phantom pen drawing on his skin.

Tony’s heart shuddered to a halt.

His head snapped up and he accidentally smacked his forehead against a pipe. Cursing, Tony pulled his wrist closer to his face. It was dark under the car, so he couldn’t make out the words, but there was undeniably ink there.

Something was written across his wrist—something that he hadn’t written himself.

Dropping his tools, Tony rolled out from underneath the car. He sat up so abruptly that he almost brained himself again, but he didn’t care. All he cared about were the words scrawled across his wrist, because _holy shit_ , words had just appeared on his skin.

_Hello my name is Peter._

The words were in red ink, the scrawl of a child just learning to write. They were messy and barely legible, but they were the most beautiful thing Tony had ever seen.

Words. _Words_. And a soulmate on the other end, writing to him. Oh, shit.

Shit—he needed to write back. He needed to say something, he needed to—

Tony scrambled onto his knees, scrabbling at his desk in such an undignified way he was glad no-one was around to see it. He pushed aside screwdrivers and hammers, opened and slammed drawers, and sent a couple projects crashing to the floor that he probably shouldn’t have, but—shit, shit, why didn’t he have a pen on him!

“JARVIS! Where the hell is my pen?”

“His” pen. He didn’t have a pen. Why on Earth would he have a pen? Everything in the lab was electronic—he never wrote anything down. He didn’t need to, not when typing something on a holo-screen was so much more convenient. He regretted that right now.

“There are several pens located in the top drawer of the cabinet closest to the door, sir.”

Tony threw himself across the lab with the coordination it usually took him a few too many drinks to achieve. He yanked the drawer open and fumbled around inside it until finally, _finally_ , he found a pen.

The nib hovered over his skin for just a moment’s hesitation.

 _Hi, Peter. My name is Tony_ , he wrote just below where Peter had, and then froze. Oh God, what should he write next? How the hell did you start your first conversation with your soulmate? Especially when said soulmate was probably around thirty years younger than you? Everyone else had just known their soulmates for as long as they could remember.

He dawdled for so long that the words sunk into his skin and disappeared—a sign that they had now appeared on his soulmate’s skin, and a phenomenon Tony had never experienced first-hand before.

He stared at the now pristine skin of his inner forearm, which showed no signs he’d ever written there at all, and waited for his soulmate— _Peter_ , for Peter—to write back.

And waited.

And waited, and waited, and waited.

He stood there for so long waiting for words to appear, staring at his forearm until his vision narrowed, that the seeds of doubt grew in his mind. Why wasn’t Peter writing back?

Had he just imagined the whole thing? Had he finally snapped? Had he not done as good of a job at suppressing his doubts and fears as he’d thought?

Tony sank to the floor, arm pressed against his chest. He needed a drink. Why was the liquor cabinet upstairs? He needed one in the lab—he couldn’t think of any possible way _that_ could go wrong.

But then, after what must have been over ten minutes, he felt the phantom pen on his skin once more. Heart shuddering, he turned his wrist over. Gone was the childish, red scrawl from before, and in its place was neat cursive, written in black. He frowned.

Then the words actually registered.

_This is Peter’s aunt. Peter hasn’t learned how to read or write properly yet. He says hello Tony!_

Oh. Oh, Tony’s heart soared. He imagined the kid—completely featureless in his mind’s eye—learning how to write his name and eagerly printing it on his skin to send to his soulmate. He saw the kid getting a response and immediately running off to ask his aunt to read it to him, and then sitting there, squirming with impatience, as she craned awkwardly over his arm to write back.

_Didn’t anyone ever teach you to wait until you could read before writing to your soulmate? Think of your poor aunt, Peter!_

He wrote without thinking, and froze the moment the ink sunk in. God, he didn’t know how to talk to kids. Was that going to upset Peter? What if he was too young to not take Tony’s teasing to heart?

Then another message from Peter came through, still in the aunt’s handwriting.

_But reading is hard and I wanted to talk to you!_

—And of course Tony’s soulmate wouldn’t get upset by his sense of humor. How could he have thought they would?

Tony laughed to himself, what had just happened catching up to him. A kid. He had a _soulmate_ , and his soulmate was a _kid_ , probably around five or six if he was just learning to write. All those years of waiting, of self-loathing and writing on his skin only for it not to sink in, and his soulmate hadn’t even been born yet.

Tony still wasn’t sure if he even liked kids. Well, he was going to like this one, he supposed. Must be a pretty amazing kid.

It didn’t take long before more words appeared, and when they did, they were in the shaky, red handwriting again. They faded onto Tony’s skin slowly, letter by letter, as if Peter were copying.

 _I love you_.

Tony’s heart soared.

His soulmate.

His soulmate, his soulmate, his soulmate.

Two words he’d never thought he would be able to put together, and yet now he could. _My soulmate._ No matter how much the world had doubted him, had loved to tear apart all of his character flaws to justify his lack of a soulmate—they were wrong. He did deserve a soulmate—he’d just had to wait a little, first.

His forearm tickled again with another message in red ink.

_:)_

***

Every time Peter wrote to him over the next few months, his handwriting and vocabulary got a little bit better.

Tony finally understood how parents could think their ugly baby was the most beautiful thing in the whole world; every improvement Peter made caused pride to blossom in Tony’s chest. This kid he’d never even met before made him prouder than anything he himself had ever achieved.

Tony was sure that Rhodey, Happy and Pepper were sick of hearing all about Peter, but he didn’t care. He knew they were all just politely allowing his endless ramblings about how funny or clever or sweet the kid was simply because they were happy that he finally had a soulmate to write to, but Tony intended to ride that politeness as far as he could.

As Peter was learning to write still, he usually got his aunt, or sometimes his uncle, to write to Tony if he had anything particularly complicated he wanted to express. Anything simple though— _hello_ s and _how are you_ s and _good night_ s—and increasingly, longer and longer sentences, he wrote himself, accompanied by a veritable gallery of drawings, often of dubious quality. Hearts and animals to illustrate his little stories and even, on one occasion, a smiley face inside a circle with a scribble of curly hair on top labeled _Peter._

Apparently, that was an inaccurate enough depiction of the kid that it didn’t count as revealing any personal details, and Tony was able to see it.

He didn’t like to admit how long he’d spent drawing a picture of himself in return—especially given that it had refused to sink in until Tony had washed it off and instead drawn his own smiley face inside a circle, but this time with a scribble of hair at both the top and bottom.

Peter’s response had been prompt and written with confidence.

 _You’re ugly_.

And then, a few seconds later:

 _I don’t like beards_.

And again, for further clarification:

_Only old people have beards. Why are you old?_

Happy and Rhodey had not found that quite as hilarious as Tony had. Jeez, the little brat was making him feel old already, and they hadn’t even met yet.

_All the cool people are old. I was busy being cool before you were even born._

He’d acquired a sense for Peter’s kiddie logic over the past few months. At first, the dots Peter’s mind connected and the ways he connected them had baffled Tony—as had the bizarre questions Peter apparently hadn’t trusted his aunt or uncle to answer like _if I jumped really hard could I fall off Earth?_. With time however, like breaking a code, Tony had found himself beginning to understand how the kid’s mind worked.

_Ben’s old and he’s really cool. But he doesn’t have a beard._

Tony smiled and wrote back, _then I guess he’s not as cool as me :)_

_Ben says that’s salamander._

That had taken Tony a few minutes to decipher. _Slander_ , he eventually realized, which Peter had misheard as _salamander_. By the time his heart had calmed down from how adorable he found that, Tony was mostly just impressed that Peter had spelled salamander correctly.

_Your spelling’s getting great, Pete._

_May doesn’t have to read for me much now!_

And it was true, Tony realized suddenly. As the months had worn on, Tony had been seeing May’s handwriting less and less, and Peter’s childish scrawl more and more. It was getting to the point where Tony couldn’t remember the last time that he’d seen May’s handwriting.

Sometimes he still wondered why the universe had decided that this kid was his soulmate, when Tony still didn’t really think of himself as even liking kids. It frustrated him whenever he wrote to Peter and received only confusion in response, because he’d overestimated the kid’s vocabulary or his ability to understand sarcasm or references.

But then a sweet message from Peter would brighten up Tony’s morning, or the kid would begin to show a curiosity for science that Tony couldn’t write fast enough to satisfy, or a particularly impressive show of vocabulary would send pride soaring through Tony’s chest that felt oddly parental. It was in those little moments that Tony knew the universe was right.

He couldn’t ask for a better soulmate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed the fluff while it lasted, because it's whump from here on out >:)
> 
> I'm also on tumblr @opal-earrings ! <3


	2. Ned Leeds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for an amazing response to the first chapter!! This one was an absolute beast to edit, so I hope you enjoy it! xx

Within twenty-four hours of announcing himself as Iron Man, a dilemma occurred to Tony.

The media attention Iron Man’s identity reveal attracted was far greater than anything he’d ever received as just good old Billionaire Businessman Tony Stark. Before, people might have heard of him, but outside of the business circles no-one had really cared all that much. Now his face was plastered on front pages all across the nation, and he’d been informed that multiple international papers had also picked up the story. Tony was internationally famous. _Everyone_ knew his face, or at the very least the metallic visage of his heroic alter-ego.

So theoretically one announcement would be all he needed to find Peter.

A public call for help. Tony Stark, searching for Peter, nephew to Ben and May, with a soulmate named Tony. He’d get Pepper to write him a statement, and this time he’d actually stick to the cards. Well, maybe. No promises.

It would be so easy. Especially given that Tony’s best estimates placed Peter—now probably around nine—as definitely American, given his spelling, and, based on the time zone he appeared to live in, most likely on the east coast. It wouldn’t be too far-fetched to hope that Ben or May, or even Peter if he was a little fan, would notice Tony’s announcement.

Tony had hoped that the cloud that was his kidnapping in Afghanistan would have a silver lining in the form of Peter realizing who he was. It pained Tony to remember the sad messages Peter had sent him during those three months, asking where he’d gone and why they didn’t have any pens there. His happiness at Tony’s return, however, hadn’t been accompanied by any evidence he’d worked it out.

Wherever Peter was, it appeared that Tony’s kidnapping hadn’t made it into his or his aunt or uncle’s field of consciousness. Or, if it had, they hadn’t connected the dots.

But that _could_ all change, now. Tony was sure they would have heard about Iron Man, but that still couldn’t guarantee that they’d work it out. Even if they did notice that Peter’s soulmate going quiet perfectly coincided with Iron Man’s disappearance, Tony doubted that would be enough for them to feel confident reaching out to him. Not when the articles about Iron Man’s identity reveal all had a paragraph dedicated to Tony Stark’s notoriously non-existent soulmate.

Publicly announcing that he _did_ in fact have a soulmate could be all he needed to do to find Peter.

And it was tempting.

It was so, so tempting.

But Peter was _nine_ , and Tony couldn’t do that to him.

Making a public announcement to help find Peter would throw the kid into the limelight. He’d be well-known, prominent, a _target_. Tony had grown up with media attention on him, thanks to his father, and it was one of the building blocks in the emotional wall he had put up around himself.

He couldn’t do the same to Peter. The attention he would garner as Iron Man’s soulmate, when Tony already had a reputation for being so despicable a person as to not deserve one, would be ten times what Tony had grown up with.

He couldn’t risk the emotional damage it would do Peter, he just couldn’t. Peter still drew him slightly wobbly pictures and saw the world with a naiveté Tony couldn’t ever remember possessing. The thought of sitting this sweet little kid down and explaining to him that people might want to hurt him because he was Tony’s soulmate—no.

 _No._ That would not be happening.

It hurt, knowing that there was an opportunity to find Peter and Tony had actively chosen not to take advantage of it.

But he didn’t give up looking; instead, he doubled his efforts. Tony kept JARVIS on constant lookout for any nine-year-olds named Peter that made the news in any capacity, even for something as trivial as winning a spelling bee. Anything at all, and JARVIS knew to send it Tony’s way so he could (possibly illegally) hack into whatever records he could find to try and pin down the name of the kid’s guardians. See if they matched.

It was tragically ineffective, but it was for the best. Tony still just considered himself fortunate to even have a soulmate. If it took a few more years before they found one another, then Tony was willing to wait.

***

“Dum-E if you touch that again, I’m gonna harvest you for spare parts.”

Dum-E beeped happily and wheeled away from the gauntlet Tony was working on, safely out of range of any spontaneous dismantling. In doing so, the robot accidentally rolled over a wire on the floor and yanked a charging energy core off the desk. Tony rolled his eyes and reached down to pick it up.

“No, I mean it this time. You’d better hope this isn’t cracked.”

Dum-E beeped back, but Tony didn’t register it. His arm tickled, that phantom pen that he had become accustomed to over the last few years. He set the (thankfully not cracked) core back on the desk and rolled up his sleeve with a smile at the thought of talking to Peter. When he read the words, his smile slipped slightly.

Written on his forearm at a slightly awkward angle, in handwriting that definitely wasn’t Peter’s, was: _Excuse me?_

Tony raised an eyebrow. The handwriting was definitely written by a kid—just not his kid.

_Who is this?_

_Ned._

That name was familiar—oh, yeah. Peter’s friend from school. The only friend he ever seemed to talk about, which worried Tony sometimes, but he could tell the two boys were close.

_Hi, Ned. What are you and Peter up to?_

Peter had regaled him with more than one tale about the shenanigans he and Ned got up to when left alone for longer than two minutes. The time they’d had a contest to see who could scream louder and a neighbor had called the cops on them was a personal favorite of Tony’s, and he was always willing to sit and be entertained by another story.

Then Ned’s response came through.

_Something’s wrong with Peter._

Tony’s heartrate leapt. Discarding his tools, Tony spun in his chair to give his whole focus to the kid. A few moments later, another message sank into his skin.

_He won’t wake up._

Shit. Oh, shit shit shit. In the background, Tony heard JARVIS say something about _heartrate_ and _calming down,_ but he didn’t pay any attention.

_Okay, Ned. Is Peter breathing? Is his chest moving up and down?_

At least one of them needed to be, because Tony sure as well wasn’t.

_I’m scared._

Tony’s throat tightened, his skin itching with anxiety. God, he wasn’t used to having to be the calm, reassuring one during stressful situations. This was why he didn’t have kids. He knew he wasn’t cut out to deal with kids!

_I know this is scary buddy, but Peter is counting on you to help him right now. So can you check if he’s breathing?_

No more messages appeared for a few long, drawn-out minutes. JARVIS took that as an opportunity to remind Tony to calm down again, but with every second that ticked by without a reply from Ned, Tony’s throat only tightened further and his heart beat faster.

Eventually, Ned responded. _I think he’s breathing. He said he was feeling funny and then he just fell over._

Tony’s head swirled in sympathy as his anxiety for Peter’s wellbeing spiked.

_Can you try and wake him up again for me? Shake him really hard and shout his name, you won’t hurt him._

He allowed Ned approximately seven seconds to achieve the task before he started feeling antsy. Tony stumbled up from the chair and paced anxiously, ignoring the way Dum-E beeped at him in concern.

 _Didn’t work._ Ned’s writing had gotten shakier.

_Okay. Is your mom nearby? Or Peter’s aunt or uncle? Or any other adults?_

_No. We’re at Park,_ Ned wrote, the name not sinking in. _There’s no one here._

Why were they out alone?! Was that normal? _That’s alright. Do you have a phone?_

_No. Peter does._

_Can you use that to call someone?_

_It’s locked._

Tony could have screamed, but he forced himself to stay patient. This was a kid who was freaked out because his friend was sick. Be kind.

He stopped pacing and rested his weight on his desk. _Can you find the button that says “Emergency Call” on the lock screen?_

_Yeah. Should I press it?_

_Yes. It’s gonna call someone who can help. I need you to tell them everything you told me, and follow all their instructions, and then they’ll send someone to help Peter, okay?_

After a moment, Tony added:

_You’re doing great, Ned. You’re really brave._

Positive reinforcement was good. He’d read that in a parenting book, a secret he would take with him to the grave.

He dug the pads of his fingers into his left arm, anxious, as he waited for another message from Ned—but nothing came through.

It was Pepper that eventually found him hours later, collapsed on a chair in the lab, clutching at his wrist and waiting for an update on Peter. The gauntlet he’d been working on was left abandoned on the desk for Dum-E to break if he wanted. Tony couldn’t focus, not until he got a message to let him know Peter was okay. Just a short message, anything—even just something from Ned, or Peter’s aunt or uncle, to let him know the kid wasn’t dead.

Pepper’s face went white when Tony told her what had happened but, like always, she knew exactly what to do. She forced Tony out of the lab, insisted he ate and drank and tried to distract him from his worry for Peter.

It didn’t work, but it was the thought that counted.

Every few minutes he still rolled up his sleeve to check, as if he could have somehow _missed_ the sensation of writing appearing there. By this point even if Tony hadn’t known Peter was currently in hospital, the kid’s silence would have concerned him. Peter never went more than a few hours without writing or drawing _something._

Tony missed his kid already, and the fear of knowing Peter couldn’t write because he was sick threatened to cripple him.

Eventually the sun dipped beneath the ocean and day turned to night, and still Tony hadn’t even had confirmation that Peter was still alive. He paced, and he drank, and he considered taking the Iron Man suit out and performing death-defying stunts to relieve his stress, but Pepper refused to allow that.

Begrudgingly, he admitted she was right. He wouldn’t be able to read even if Peter did write to him in the suit, anyway. He’d have to work on that.

He tried to convince himself that he’d just _know_ if there was something really wrong with Peter, even though the people who claimed they could feel when their soulmates were hurt didn’t really have any basis in science. Tony had always scoffed at the thought of a spiritual connection between soulmates but, in his desperation, he clung to the idea that he would know if something was truly wrong.

After Pepper bid him goodnight and disappeared upstairs, Tony couldn’t bear the waiting any longer.

_Hey, Pete. Are you okay?_

And then he sat, and he waited, just as he had all those years ago when Peter had first written to him. Dum-E beeped curiously in the background, but Tony ignored him, just waiting, and watching.

Embarrassingly, it took JARVIS pointing out the time before Tony realized it was hopeless. It was already 2 a.m. on the east coast, and even if Peter lived further west it was still far too late for a nine-year-old to be awake.

Tony knew he couldn’t sleep like this. He settled into the lab for the night, drafting up ideas for the tech that would allow him to read Peter’s messages even in the suit.

He was worn out from the stress of the day, but he tried to power through the heaviness in his eyelids and the way they kept closing against his will. He wasn’t going to sleep like this, he couldn’t until he knew Peter was okay—

Somewhere around 3 a.m., his eyes shut and didn’t open again.

***

A tickling on his skin awoke him.

Tony groaned in annoyance. The lights were off when he opened his eyes—JARVIS, you lifesaver—and he sat up, blinking in confusion at the specs spread across his desk-turned-pillow. He was used to waking up in the lab by now, but it was still a little disorientating to wake up with Dum-E hovering nearby and his cheek aching where he’d accidentally rested it on a wire for who knew how many hours.

Then he actually registered the tickling on his skin.

Peter. Oh, God, _Peter._

He yanked his sleeve down, bleary eyes struggling to focus on the writing there.

_Hey Tony!! It was so cool I got to ride in an ambulance and then a nice nurse gave me candy!!_

Oh, oh thank God. Tony pressed the back of a hand against his mouth, ignoring the way it shook, and just sat there for a moment, reveling in the fact that Peter was okay. He was okay, and he was writing to him with that childish enthusiasm and positivity that always colored the way Peter saw the world.

Tony was overcome with a sudden desire to hug Peter, to draw him into his arms and hold him securely, knowing that he was safe and warm and happy. Tony had never even met the kid, had no idea what he looked like or what his last name was or where he lived—but he knew that if jumping off a cliff would ensure Peter’s safety, he’d do it in a heartbeat.

_That’s amazing, kiddo. Don’t eat too much or you’ll have no teeth by the time we meet._

_I still have baby teeth so I can eat as much candy as I want it doesn’t matter!!_

_Who’s been teaching you that?_

_You did!_

Tony paused. Had he? He shook his head. He’d deal with the guilt of being a bad influence later.

_You okay, Pete? Did the doctor tell you why you were feeling funny?_

He waited with a pounding heart for the message to come through, terrified that it could be something serious. If he’d finally got Peter only to lose him a few years later, before they even met, he doubted he would survive the heartbreak. Surely the universe couldn’t be that cruel—

_She said I was ~~dehidr dehye deehy~~ she said I didn’t drink enough water._

Tony blew out a slow breath. Well that wasn’t good—scratch that, that was really, really bad—but it could have been worse. If Peter was dehydrated, then an IV at the hospital would have sorted that out, and now the kid would be okay. Tony could finally relax.

Still, he tried to focus on the idea of Peter eating candy rather than him with a needle in the back of his hand.

_Gotta make sure to drink loads of water then, kiddo! Otherwise you won’t grow up to be big like me._

_I’m big!! I’m way taller than Ned._

Before Tony could reply, singing his praises for Ned, whose level-headedness he couldn’t help but be impressed by, Peter wrote again.

_I’m sorry, Tony._

Tony’s pen stilled over his forearm.

_Did I scare you? :(_

Oh. Oh, Pete.

Tony still didn’t quite understand how the universe had decided he deserved a soulmate like Peter. The kid was far more emotionally intelligent than Tony had been even at twice Peter’s age, and he was so optimistic and good. Tony understood how Peter helped him, and he was forever grateful for it—but then he looked at himself, and he just simply could not comprehend how he could be any sort of good influence for the kid.

He supposed that Iron Man was the manifestation of all of his best qualities, but the thought of Peter growing up thinking he should sacrifice his own safety to save others made Tony’s chest tighten.

_A little, yeah. But it’s okay. I’m happy now that I know you’re alright._

_I’m sorry for making you sad._

Tony’s heart swelled. This kid was so damn _good_.

_You can never make me sad, Pete. I was just worried._

Peter’s message took a long time to come through, as if he had put great thought into it.

_Maybe you could have some candy? The nurse said candy helps you feel better!_

Tony laughed, tension bleeding from his limbs. Peter was okay, he was safe, he wasn’t dying. Tony repeated it in his mind like a mantra.

_I think you’re onto something there, kiddo._

Absently, Tony glanced at the time. It was only 6 a.m., meaning he’d only got around three hours sleep, but he’d functioned with worse before. Besides, he was feeling inspired and had a new project to work on, and with the confirmation that Peter was happy and well, Tony had found a new reserve of energy.

Sleeve rolled up and pen ready, Tony gently pushed Dum-E away from the gauntlet he was poking at and got to work.


	3. Happy Hogan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains one of my favourite scenes in the entire fic. Hope you enjoy! <3

“Cheers,” Tony said dryly as he bumped his slice of pizza against Happy’s. “Here’s to never having to do it again.”

Today had been absolute hell for both of them. The Avengers had left for a mission at 4 a.m., a criminally early start that had left Tony seriously considering retirement. And that was before he, sans his suit, had had to carry a knocked-out Steve for over a mile through the forest to prevent them both getting captured. By the time Natasha had pinpointed their location and got a Quinjet to them, Tony was about ready to give himself up. If he got captured and tied to a chair at least he’d be able to _sit down_ for a fucking minute.

Once they’d finally arrived back at the Tower, the hell had started up for Happy. The media had gotten wind of Steve’s injuries, which meant that Happy’s day was spent repeatedly chasing well-meaning security breaches out of the lobby. It was inevitable every time an Avenger was injured: fans would attempt to break into the Tower to leave gifts and get-well-soon cards.

Tony was sure Happy took it as a personal slight every time an Avenger deigned to get themselves injured.

It was now nearing 4 p.m., and thankfully it appeared that the security breaches had come to an end for the day. Tony and Happy had collapsed together in the penthouse living room to share a pizza. It was the only thing keeping Tony sane right now—that, and the veritable rant he had sent Peter earlier about just how terrible his day had been. He’d had to avoid saying anything too specific, but it had been effective at venting his anger.

Just as the stress of the day began to melt off their shoulders, their late lunch-date was brought to an abrupt end when Happy’s phone began to buzz with a great sense of urgency. The man grumbled and pulled it out, then grumbled again as he pushed away his unfinished half of the pizza.

“Got another breach in the lobby,” Happy said, rolling his eyes. “I’ll be right back.”

“Don’t take too long or I’m eating your portion,” Tony threatened.

Happy grumbled as he left. Tony shoved a crust in his mouth and reluctantly pulled out his phone. He knew he should take this opportunity to answer some of the emails he’d been ignoring, even though it was the last thing in the world he wanted to do right now. Unfortunately, the threat of Pepper badgering him was too strong to ignore. He didn’t know how she knew when he’d seen something and was ignoring it, as opposed to just unaware of its existence, but she could, and he didn’t want to face her wrath if he didn’t get back to their shareholders.

Throughout the lunch, Tony’s arm had been tickling almost as urgently as Happy’s phone had been buzzing, so he rushed through the emails as quickly as possible, eager to see what Peter was writing to him so enthusiastically about.

Once he was done, he tucked his phone in a pocket and unbuttoned his sleeve so he could roll it up. His arm was absolutely covered in Peter’s rounded scrawl, growing increasingly messy with each message.

_I figured it out!!!!!!!_

_Omg!!!!_

_Are you at the tower?_

_I’m in the lobby_

_Tony are you there?? They won’t let me in_

_Please talk to me I skipped band practice for this I’m gonna get in trouble_

_I got detained by security :(_

_They gave me a new pen tho so it’s all good!_

_Please call your head of security and tell him it’s me_

_They said he’s called Happy Hogan can u please call him_

_Tony PLEASE_

_Call Happy Hogan_

The pizza slice fell from his hand, but Tony didn’t even hear it hit the table. He was already on his feet, sprinting for the elevator. He jabbed the call button repeatedly, frustrated when the elevator doors didn’t immediately open. Goddammit, why was it taking so long? If he didn’t get down there in time—Happy would probably call the cops on Peter, and he couldn’t let that happen.

He fumbled to grab his phone from his pocket.

“What do you want?” Happy snapped when he answered the call, in that charming, good-natured way only Happy could master. “There’s a situation, I need to deal with this before it escalates—”

“It’s Peter,” Tony said, breathless.

He could practically hear Happy freeze. “What?”

“The situation. It’s a kid, right? About twelve? Trying to see me? It’s Peter. It’s my kid. Don’t kick him out, just—I’m coming down, you’ve gotta make sure—”

“Alright,” said Happy, already recovered. God bless that unflappable man. “I’ll handle it. I’ll take him to my office and let my guys know I’ve got it.”

“Good. Good. I’m on my way down. Make sure he’s—he’s comfortable, and okay. And—fuck, make sure none of your guys hurt him or anything or—”

“I’ll get it sorted, Tony. How’d the kid even find you? Did he say?”

“I don’t know, I have no idea—I thought if Afghanistan didn’t do it then nothing would. That’s not relevant. Offer him something to drink or something and—”

“I’m not your butler, Tony.” Happy paused. “But okay. I will.”

Tony thanked him, and then the elevator arrived. Tony stumbled into it, tugging at his hair to relieve his stress as he pressed the button for his floor. His legs were weak but he ignored it. He didn’t have time for inconsequential things like hyperventilating and passing out, not right now.

Peter was downstairs. _Peter was downstairs._

Peter was downstairs and—had the elevator always been this slow?

“Dammit, JARVIS, can’t this thing go any faster?”

“Regrettably, this elevator is not equipped with an accelerator, sir,” JARVIS replied dryly.

“Right.” Tony resisted the urge to slam his head against the wall as the numbers ticked down way, way too slowly. “Put elevator accelerators on my to-do list please.”

“Of course, sir,” JARVIS said just as the elevator reached the floor with Happy’s office.

Tony threw himself through the doors the moment they slid open and booked it down the corridor, heart pounding in his ears as he dodged startled employees and security officers. He sprinted towards Happy’s office and burst through the shut door when he got there, startling the only occupant.

It was a kid in a science pun t-shirt, with round brown eyes and dark curly hair. The kid stared at him in shock with that slightly star-struck look on his face that most people had when they met Tony for the first time. But the kid got over it quickly and his face lit up with a bright smile.

“The kid”. Not just _a_ kid. This was… _his_ kid. This was Peter. The faceless kid he’d been speaking to for seven years, longing for for seven years—it was him. This was _Peter_.

Tony was speechless.

“Oh my God,” Peter whispered. “Oh my God. It’s so weird seeing you in person, I’ve been watching you on the TV for years—” He shook his head. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it! Holy shit. I was—you were talking about being away for work and your colleague getting hurt and I read in the news that the Avengers went on a mission and Captain America was injured and I was like _wow that’s a weird coincidence!_ And then I remembered those three months you went missing a few years ago and I was like _holy shit_ because that like perfectly coincides with when Iron Man got kidnapped and I just—”

His face went pale. “Oh my God, I shouldn’t have mentioned that. Is it rude to mention that? I’m sorry. I’m making a terrible impression. I just—wow! I can’t believe I’ve been talking to Iron Man all these years, this is super weird. I told you about my Avengers birthday party, didn’t I? That must have been like so weird for you to hear and like not be able to say anything—”

Peter kept rambling, but all Tony could do was stare at the kid’s face. _His_ kid’s face.

In a rush, all the affection and love Tony felt for the kid and had never been able to properly express overwhelmed him. Wordlessly, Tony crossed the distance between them and pulled Peter into his arms. He tucked the kid’s head under his chin and carded a hand through his hair. Peter’s voice trailed off as he wrapped his arms around Tony, too.

His kid. His kid, his kid, his kid.

Vaguely, he was aware of the door opening, of Happy coming in holding a plastic cup of water, but Tony paid him no mind. How could he when _Peter_ was here?

“Oh,” said Peter quietly, tightening the hug. “This is nice.”

Tony laughed, eyes misty. Yeah. He wasn’t sure _nice_ would have been his choice of word—maybe somewhere more along the lines of _incredible_ or _unbelievable_ because _how the hell had Tony been lucky enough for the stars to align like this_ —but yeah. Yeah, this was nice.

***

A weight dropped onto Tony’s shoulder, dragging his attention away from the movie. Curly hair tickled his chin when he glanced down at the kid, who was falling asleep where he leaned against him.

Tony laughed softly. “You with us, buddy?”

Peter groaned and forced his eyes open. “’m ‘wake.”

“Sure you are,” Tony said with a fond smile.

He glanced around the living room, checking to see if Rhodey, Clint, and Natasha were still awake. Somehow, they were. It was Rhodey’s choice Avengers movie night, and Peter had also joined them for the pleasure of taking part in the extreme sport that was staying awake for the entirety of the movie. Tony loved Rhodey, but the man’s taste in movies was abysmal. The kid was doing an admirable job, all things considered.

Peter joining them had become a regular occurrence ever since Tony had first introduced the kid to the team and had sat back and watched with satisfaction as they hit it off. Where Tony was abrasive, Peter was personable, and Tony was sure Peter had already overtaken him in terms of popularity with the team.

The kid had become a regular face at both the compound, where they were tonight, and the Tower. Sometimes he was accompanied by the famous Aunt May and Uncle Ben, but most of the time he came alone, either to just hang out or for Tony to tutor him in engineering. Tony had been sorely disappointed by Peter’s school’s Grade 7 science program and had decided to compensate. Some might say overcompensate—apparently, arc reactors weren’t on the curriculum and never would be—but that was a matter of opinion.

Tutoring Peter had fast become Tony’s favorite part of the week. Peter’s intelligence shone even more now Tony could observe it in person, and working with a kid who drank in and internalized information almost faster than Tony could introduce it was like a breath of fresh air.

Tony sighed. The film was winding down, and it was already fairly late on a Sunday evening. Within three minutes of meeting May it was obvious she wasn’t afraid to pick a fight with Tony if he did anything she disagreed with, and returning Peter past his curfew on a school night would probably fall under that category.

Given that they were at the compound, the kid would need to get going soon if he was going to make it back in time.

“C’mon, kid,” Tony said, nudging Peter awake. “Let’s get you home before your unusually attractive aunt has me crucified.”

“Nng,” was the only verbal response he got from Peter. A moment later, the kid forced himself upright and rubbed at his eyes. “Not tired.”

Tony supposed that counted as conscious enough to walk to the car. He went to drag Peter to his feet, but then his gaze fell upon his empty wine glass on the coffee table.

“Shit,” he groaned, satisfied that Peter was too sleepy to report his language to May. “I’ve been drinking. Someone else needs to drive Peter home.”

Normally he’d receive at least one offer, but to Tony’s despair, the others all raised their wine glasses apologetically.

“Seriously? How are we all alcoholics?”

“How else do you expect us to get through this movie?” asked Clint.

“Hey,” said Rhodey, without much gumption.

Tony rubbed his face in his hands. Who the hell was going to take the kid home? He sure wasn’t going to let _his kid_ take a taxi home. “I’ll get Happy. He’ll enjoy that.”

“I would not enjoy that,” said Happy gruffly when he arrived in the living room a few minutes later, but he was carrying his car keys and had Peter’s bags. The two of them hadn’t quite hit it off after Peter had attempted to break into the Tower, but it hadn’t taken long for Happy to develop a soft spot for Peter.

“Yes, you will,” Tony said, nudging Peter, who had fallen asleep again. _Not tired_ , huh?

Sleepily, Peter got to his feet, hugged Tony, waved goodbye to the other Avengers, and then followed Happy in the direction of the elevator. Tony watched him go and then sat back, accepting a refill of wine when Clint offered, and tried to muster the energy to enjoy the last few minutes of the movie. When that proved futile, he pulled out his phone to let May know Peter was on his way.

Eventually, to everyone’s relief, the movie ended. Natasha politely offered up an observation that Rhodey jumped on, happily attempting to convince them of the movie’s merits. Tony half listened, forcing himself to sip his wine slowly and not just chug the whole thing. He almost choked when Rhodey asked him a question he hadn’t paid attention to, but blessedly his arm tickled at that exact moment.

“Sorry—Peter,” he said as he unbuttoned his sleeve and yanked it up to his elbow. “Probably forgot his phone.”

However, the message wasn’t in Peter’s handwriting. It was in Happy’s.

_PETER IS OKAY._

Tony raised an eyebrow at the aggressively reassuring message.

_But there’s a situation. A car hit us, on his side._

Tony froze, his eyes darting unseeingly over the writing on his skin.

“JARVIS, we need medical,” he muttered, his mouth catching up before his mind had even finished processing Happy’s message and all its implications. He stumbled to his feet and patted his pockets down until he found his pen, talking to JARVIS even as he wrote. “Call Happy. Or Peter.”

_Peter? Buddy, you with me?_

“I’m sorry sir. I am unable to reach either of their phones.”

 _Shit._ “Then get me their location and their stats. Now.”

Rhodey looked over. “Tones?” The other Avengers had fallen still, wine glasses frozen halfway to mouths and conversation hanging in the air.

Natasha stood up. “Tony? Who needs medical? Is it Peter?”

Tony clutched at his arm so tightly his knuckles turned white. “Car crash,” he choked. “Peter’s—he’s not—Happy has to—”

Immediately, Rhodey was by his side, a comforting hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, Tones. It’s gonna be alright.”

It was not alright. How was this by any definition _alright?_

Tony’s arm tickled again.

_He’s awake, but his right arm isn’t looking good. He says he’s okay, but I think he just doesn't want you to worry._

“Shit.” Tony shrugged away from Rhodey, mind a thousand miles away. “JARVIS, suits. Have you got their location?”

“Yes, sir,” JARVIS replied. “I have programmed their location into your suit. Both Mr. Hogan and Mr. Parker have suffered mild to moderate injuries.”

“Shit,” said Clint, face pale.

Tony’s heart skipped. “Can they—is it safe to move them?”

“My sensors within the car are limited, however, it appears that neither Mr. Hogan nor Mr. Parker have received injuries critical enough that they cannot be moved.”

Tony made eye contact with Rhodey, who squared his jaw and nodded.

A moment later, an Iron Man suit landed on the balcony outside, accompanied by the War Machine armor. Tony stumbled over to the door and climbed inside the suit as Rhodey did the same.

“Let us know they’re safe,” said Clint, and Natasha nodded.

The faceplate snapped shut, and without another word Tony took off, Rhodey not far behind.

“Where are they?” Rhodey asked.

The directions appeared in his HUD. “A few miles out.”

As he spoke his arm tickled, and a moment later handwritten words began to scroll across his vision.

_I think Peter might be concussed._

Tony’s stomach sank, and he struggled to draw in air despite a band tightening around his ribs.

He’d gotten better at dealing with his panic ever since the formation of the Avengers. Steve and Natasha and Clint had taught him that keeping calm was key when missions started to go wrong, and how to reign in his spiraling thoughts when he needed to. Knowing that his kid was hurt, however, made it hard to put the rules into practice.

He was panicking. There was no _calm breathing_ and _rational thoughts_ and _grounding techniques_ when his kid was hurt—when he hadn’t been there to protect him—

Guilt washed over him like a tsunami. Why hadn’t he been there? Why had he been sat here, being selfish and drinking wine, when he should have been protecting his kid?

He was a superhero. How could he fail at keeping one kid safe?

It took only a few minutes of tense flight before they arrived. JARVIS’s directions led them to an intersection where a car had run a red light and T-boned the passenger side of Happy’s Audi. Traffic had halted all around the intersection; bystanders stood around taking photos of the crash or crowding around the driver’s side door to offer help. The passenger side door was pinned shut by the hood of the other car.

Tony and Rhodey landed, one _clank!_ after another. People turned in shock and phones pointed their way. A man was stood by Happy’s door with blood running from his nose—likely the other driver—and his face went white when he spotted Tony.

“Oh my God. Mr. Stark, I—”

Tony ignored him; he grabbed the car that was smashed into the side of Happy’s and wrenched it away, the bonnet crumpling under Iron Man’s steel grip. Gasps rose from the assembled audience. The passenger window was stained with blood and opaque from how much it was cracked. Fear threatening to choke him, Tony grabbed the handle and ripped the door off its hinges. He tossed it aside, his helmet receding as he ducked into the doorway.

There was Peter, blood pouring from a gash across his forehead and dribbling from the corner of his mouth. His right arm was swollen and painted purple and blue, and he cradled it close to his chest. Behind him was Happy, bruised and pale. He looked panicked, leaning over Peter protectively, but didn’t appear to be bleeding.

“Boss, I—” Happy started.

“Happy,” breathed Tony, part of the weight lifting from his shoulders. Happy was okay, if a little battered. Tony could focus his concern now. “Rhodey, get—get Happy.”

“Tony?” mumbled Peter, his eyes not quite focusing on Tony’s face.

Tony stroked Peter’s hair with one hand as the other fumbled to free him from his seatbelt. He forced a smile on his face, forced his lungs to breathe so that his voice wouldn’t broadcast his panic. “Hey, kiddo. It’s me. You’re not looking too hot, huh?”

Peter’s head lolled and his face screwed up. “I’m—I’m okay.”

Tony raised an eyebrow. “Sure you are Pete. Just like how you weren’t tired earlier, huh?”

“Happy didn’t—didn’t write what I said… I’m okay, Tony. Don’t… need to worry.” His words were slurred and he kept swallowing like he was about to throw up.

The seatbelt finally clicked free. “Don’t you worry about me. Let’s get you out here, okay?”

Peter nodded, then grimaced. Tony gently lifted him out of the car, moving him as carefully as he could in case there were other injuries he hadn’t seen yet. He tried to get Peter’s feet underneath him, but he crumpled like a rag doll the moment Tony loosened his grip, so instead he scooped Peter up in his arms. The kid whined at the sudden change in angle and buried his face in Tony’s neck.

On the other side of the car, Rhodey was helping Happy to stand. Happy seemed a bit more stable on his feet than Peter was, but he had one arm curled around his ribs.

“I’ll stay here, Tony,” Happy offered, sounding only a little winded. “Rhodey and I’ll wait for the police.”

“You sure you’re good?”

Happy nodded. “You worry about the kid.”

The other driver’s face had, if anything, gotten even paler. “Mr. Stark—”

“Save it, buddy.” He’d need his breath to defend himself as soon as Tony got his lawyers on the phone.

He cradled Peter closer to his chest and nodded his goodbye to Rhodey and Happy, then took off, headed towards the compound. Peter whined again and clung to Tony’s neck.

“T’ny.”

“It’s alright, Pete. Just stay awake for me. I’ve got you.”

And he did have him. It had been a few months since Peter had first forced his way into the Tower, and Tony still hadn’t got used to his soulmate being _here._ Being able to hold his kid, to speak to him in person, to know what he looked like and the intonation he used when he spoke and how his face lit up every time Tony made him laugh—it was a miracle Tony still hadn’t quite gotten used to.

Peter had been hurt and upset in the past, and Tony’s worry had always affected him tenfold when he couldn’t be _there_ to comfort his kid, to help take the pain away. He wasn’t good with words, especially not in delicate situations.

But within a few days of meeting Peter Tony had quickly learned that his love language was touch, and a hug was well within Tony’s capabilities. He could finally be there for Peter and comfort him like a soulmate was supposed to. In return, Tony’s worry lessened now that he could hold his kid and know that he was safe and as happy and healthy as he could be when he was hurting.

Cradling his kid when he was hurting was the best medicine for both of them.

***

Tony tilted his phone away from the morning sunlight to read the text from May letting him know when she and Ben would be over that evening. He sent back a thumbs up and slid his phone into his pocket, smiling at Peter.

The medbay wasn’t exactly the most inviting place in the world, and the food sucked, but Peter wasn’t letting it get him down. Within minutes of getting the cast, he’d asked if the Avengers would all sign it for him—which Tony had vetoed, for safety reasons. Not that the Avengers or Peter had listened. Tony had come back from a trip to the toilet to find Peter’s cast decorated with doodles. Thankfully, none of them were identifiable as being drawn by an Avenger, so Tony didn’t have to call back the doctor to redo Peter’s cast.

He didn’t expect that would have gone down well.

Happy, who had walked away from the crash with a cracked rib, had spent the night in the neighboring bed, but by now had disappeared. Technically, the man was meant to be on medical leave, but short of locking him in a cupboard there wasn’t really a way to get Happy to stop working. Tony had warned the doctor of Happy’s disposition and then left Happy to make his own poor decisions.

When Tony expressed his disbelief that Peter was taking this so well, Peter screwed up his eyebrows.

“Are you crazy? This is great! I mean, yeah, the car crash wasn’t fun, but this is the _Avengers hospital!_ That’s so cool! Who else gets to stay at the Avengers compound when they miss school? I wish I could tell Ned, he’d be so jealous. Plus I had a history test today that I hadn’t studied for, so that’s—” Peter trailed off and his face went white.

Tony raised an eyebrow. “What was that last bit, mister?”

“Uh, nothing—please don’t tell Ben and May—”

Tony ruffled Peter’s hair, taking care not to dislodge the bandage wrapped around his head. “I won’t, but I know what you’re going to be doing with all this free time you have now.”

Peter pouted. “But history's really difficult.”

“Well, then it’s a good thing we have a resident prehistoric super soldier you can ask for help, isn’t it?”

Peter groaned in that melodramatic preteen way. “I hate you. You’re the worst.”

“Correct. I am. Which I guess means you’ll have no reservations about spending the whole day doing homework with Steve, will you?”

Peter was silent for so long that for a moment Tony thought he had misread the situation and genuinely had pissed the kid off—again with the talking to children problem—but abruptly, Peter stuck his broken arm in Tony’s direction.

“You haven’t signed my cast yet.”

Tony smiled, relieved. Good thing he always kept a pen on him. Because of course he was going to sign his kid’s cast, even though he’d said it was a bad idea earlier. He wasn’t going to be the _only_ Avenger that hadn’t drawn on Peter’s cast.

It was almost embarrassing how completely this kid had the Avengers wrapped around his little finger, but Tony loved Peter too much to care.

“I’ll only sign it if you promise not to flog my signature on eBay.”

“But what if I really need the cash?”

“Not even then.”

“… I was right, you really are the worst.”


	4. Gideon Myers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I'm so sorry this chapter took so long—I got kind of burned out after Chapter 3 so I took a short break to make sure the quality stayed consistent, and then this chapter ended up being a little bastard to write. It's the longest so far though, so I hope that makes up for the wait!
> 
> For clarity: Peter's thirteen in this, so no spidey powers for him just yet :(
> 
> Happy reading! <3

It all started with one unfortunately timed photograph.

Ever since the day Peter had first forced his way into the Tower, Tony had become pedantic about ensuring the media never caught wind of his existence. He couldn’t risk bringing Peter into the limelight, not after the decision he’d made years ago not to publicly reach out for him. He’d suffered the guilt of knowing he actively chose not to find his soulmate for years, and he couldn’t throw away all that heartbreak now.

Together with May and Ben, he established careful rules to help the three Parkers adjust to suddenly becoming family to one of the most famous men on the planet. He and Peter kept their writing well within where it could be hidden behind clothing. Tony avoided making appearances in Queens as much as possible. A story about Peter receiving after-school tuition in Manhattan helped ease suspicion about Happy picking him up several times a week.

For several months it all worked out. Peter clearly had a hard time adjusting to these new rules, but like a little trooper, he gritted his teeth and adapted. For him, his soulmate being Iron Man and introducing him to the Avengers outweighed the new difficulties he faced.

And then Tony went and fucked it all up.

He didn’t even realize at the time. It happened during a press conference: Tony, listening to Steve answer a reporter’s question, reached up to readjust his glasses. It was a habit; he’d barely even noticed he’d moved.

But at that moment, someone took a photo that clearly showed Peter’s handwriting on the inside of Tony’s wrist.

_Can you ask Happy to pick me up a bit later? I have to stay after school!_

By the end of the press conference, the story hit headlines.

The next few hours were blurry, panicked. Happy, in the most nondescript car they could find, collected Ben, May and Peter to take them to the Tower, dodging the paparazzi and reporters that had gathered around the bottom, demanding to know more about Tony Stark’s soulmate.

When the Parkers arrived, Tony hugged Peter close and promised Ben and May that they’d sort this out.

Pepper spent the whole day bustling in and out, her hair slowly slipping out of its chignon, as she kept them up to date on how the PR team were handling everything. Meanwhile, Tony hovered around the penthouse, itchy and impatient, watching the Parkers anxiously checking the news for their names plastered across front pages.

Luckily—God knows which one of the Parkers had enough good karma to outweigh the constant bad luck that seemed to follow Tony around—nothing happened.

The media didn’t find Peter’s name. They knew that Tony had a soulmate and that the soulmate was a kid, still in school.

Other than that, they were clueless.

Pepper held a press conference and confirmed Tony’s soulmate was a minor, solely to force the reporters gathered around the Tower to leave. Tony sent Peter off to school the next day, terrified he’d have to rescue him from reporters, but he didn’t. Peter got home safely at the end of the day, and besides Peter complaining about Iron Man’s soulmate being _literally all anyone talked about all day >:(_, nothing happened.

Besides Peter admitting he’d told Ned who his soulmate was, everything continued as normal—well, that and Tony’s anxiety every time Peter came by the Tower. He was terrified of phantom reporters hidden in the shadows who could make the connection. It would be weird enough for Tony to be caught hanging out with a teenager, period, and would probably spark rumors about an illegitimate child the PR team wouldn’t be able to shake off. But so soon after the revelation that Tony Stark’s previously non-existent soulmate both existed and was of school-going age?

Tony worried every time he invited Peter to the Tower, but as each subsequent visit passed with no identity-revealing disaster, his anxieties slowly waned.

It was gonna be okay. Things were going to be difficult, but they’d make it work. Peter was strong, and so long as Peter was happy, Tony was happy.

It was going to be okay.

***

_Wanna join us for dinner later? Pepper’s making that French thing I told you about._

Tony frowned down at his wrist. Peter still hadn’t replied. Tony had written to him this morning and shot off a text too when Peter hadn’t replied immediately. It was now past midday, and Peter was still uncharacteristically silent. He knew the kid was at school, but that had never stopped him from replying before—to the extent that, for one semester, Peter had been banned from bringing a pen to school, forced to write in pencil.

With a sigh, Tony rebuttoned his sleeve and brushed off Peter’s silence. The kid would get back to him soon.

***

“Are we sparring, or are you actually trying to kill me? Because I can’t tell!”

In a flash of red hair so quick Tony could barely track it, Natasha caught him in a bruising headlock.

She smirked. “You’re flattering yourself if you think it would take me this long to kill you.”

“Oh. Great,” Tony groaned, trying and failing to free himself from the headlock using the technique Natasha had drilled into his head. “Is it too late to say no to the super-secret boyband?”

God damn did he hate sparring without his suit—especially against Natasha, whom Tony doubted actually _wanted_ him to succeed and didn’t just enjoy making a fool of him. But, as the team had pointed out, he couldn’t allow himself to become a dead weight the moment his suit was disabled.

Still, that didn’t mean he had to enjoy any of this.

Just as Tony was about to yield, JARVIS’s voice rose through the training room speakers.

“Sir, May Parker is on the phone. It appears to be urgent.”

Natasha reluctantly released him, and Tony staggered to where he’d discarded his watch next to a water bottle. He strapped it onto his wrist.

“Put her through.” He jabbed a finger in Natasha’s direction. “I totally could have got out of that, by the way.”

After a moment, May’s voice came from Tony’s watch, only loud enough for himself and Natasha to hear.

“Tony? Is—is Peter with you?”

He frowned and glanced down at his wrist. Peter still hadn’t responded, and it had been hours. Tony’s gut felt heavy all of a sudden.

“No,” he said, voice tight. “Is he not at school?”

May sobbed. “No. I—he was home alone this morning, Ben and I were at work, but he texted us to say everything was okay. I—I just got back from the hospital and the school called us earlier and they—they said Peter never showed up—and he’s not picking up the phone—I called his friends, and Ned’s mom, but they don’t know anything—”

Tony’s heart sped up. He glanced at Natasha. Her face was cold, eyes hard as she listened in.

“It’s alright, May. I’ll track his phone, see if I can find him. He’s probably skipping school or… I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation. I’ll call you back when I’ve got him, okay?”

It took May a moment to respond. She sucked in a deep, wavering breath. “Okay. Please, just—find him, Tony. This isn’t like him.”

No, it wasn’t, Tony thought as he swiped his suddenly clammy palms on his sweatpants.

The call ended. A gentle hand on his arm made Tony jump, but it was just Natasha. She shot Tony a sympathetic look, then glanced over at the rest of the team.

“Steve,” she said, voice grim.

Her voice was quiet, but it brought the room to a tense standstill. Tony could feel his teammates’ eyes on him, and he drew in a deep breath, forcing his rising panic down.

Natasha nodded in Tony’s direction. “We’ve got a situation.”

***

Tony landed heavily in a dirty alleyway, heartbeat like a marching army in his ears. He waved away another warning from JARVIS about his heart- and breathing-rate and scanned the alley, eyes flitting over overflowing dumpsters and wet cardboard slowly disintegrating on the ground. It stank of smoke and trash—and was heartbreakingly empty.

Because this was where tracking Peter had led him, and no-one was here.

Peter was gone, and Tony couldn’t find him.

He _couldn’t_ be gone. Tony’s HUD was still blinking, lighting up the alley with the full confidence that Peter would be there.

Tony staggered over to one of the dumpsters and threw open the lid. He would have given anything for Peter to be there, even bloodied and beaten and carelessly tossed inside to bleed out—but all he found was the kid’s backpack.

The bag wasn’t even ripped or stained or looted—it was just there, slightly dirty, with Peter’s phone in the front pocket, screen smashed.

Tony’s legs gave out underneath him, the suit whirring as it crumpled too. His hands clawed desperately at the suit’s breastplate, behind which his muscles seized, tearing at the knot of scars in the center of his sternum. Peter was gone, and Tony didn’t know where he was or what had happened to him.

The great Iron Man, reduced to a pathetic mess because of one child.

“Talk to us, Tony.” Steve, in his ear. Tony had left the training room in a suit, rocketing towards Peter’s last known location without waiting for anything, even his teammates. He’d barely even spared a thought for the fact that, if Peter _had_ been here, Iron Man’s presence would have drawn attention they couldn’t afford.

It didn’t matter. Peter wasn’t here.

“He—he’s gone. He’s not—he’s not here—”

A prolonged moment of silence.

“Okay, Tony.” Steve’s voice was pained. They all loved Peter. But, like the soldier he was, Steve knew how to push his feelings aside and keep marching onwards. “Nat’s already on it. We’re going to find him, okay? Just get back to the Tower, we’ll need you.”

The empty promise Tony had said to May earlier echoed back to him, bringing him no comfort.

_We’ll find him._

***

“Tony, they’ll be able to reach a wider public—eyewitnesses can be essential in solving disappearances—”

 _“No!”_ Tony cut Rhodey off, slamming his fist against the table. “We are _not_ getting the police involved! If the police get involved, the media gets involved, and if today proves anything it’s that Peter needs to _fucking stay out of the public eye!”_

Rhodey barely even blinked, used to Tony’s shit after all these years. “We don’t even know if he’s been kidnapped, Tones—”

“What the fuck else do you think could have happened? You _know_ he’s not the type to run away!”

His outburst drew a sob from May where she and Ben sat on the other side of the table; Ben pulled her into his arms and pressed a kiss into her hair. Tony looked away, throat tight, and dug his fingers into his left bicep. The muscle was beginning to hurt, but he just didn’t care.

The penthouse was in chaos. Tony, Ben, and May sat together at the dining table as Avengers and SHIELD agents buzzed around them. The living room had been repurposed as a base of operations and was almost unrecognizable as countless people tracked cameras across the city for any sign of Peter.

In front of Tony was a patchwork of holo-screens, but it was pointless. In the blind spot between two cameras, Peter had disappeared. They couldn’t even pinpoint a suspicious vehicle or person.

They had no leads.

The kid was gone, and they had _no leads._

A room full of some of the most brilliant minds in the United States, equipped with the best tracking tech Tony’s money could buy, and they _couldn’t find any leads._

And now the team wanted to risk involving the media and forever placing a glowing, neon target on Peter’s forehead. Tony refused to even humor the idea.

He was Tony Stark. He had access to CCTV and phone networks across the entirety of the US. He didn’t need eyewitnesses to help him find Peter.

“Tony,” said Ben. Tony’s gaze snapped to him. “I think we should listen to Rhodes.”

“Ben—” He’d assumed Ben would be on his side about this.

“I don’t want Pete to deal with any unnecessary attention, either,” Ben continued, running his hands through May’s hair. “But… your secret comes second to his safety. I want him _home_. I’d want him home, and safe, and having to adapt to a new lifestyle over him _missing_ any day.”

Tony’s fingers dug into a knot in his bicep. “Believe me, Ben. Me too. But if we let the media get wind of his identity, he’ll never truly be safe again. Anyone I’ve ever wronged, anyone who’s ever wanted to hurt me—they’ll know that Peter is the fastest, easiest way to get to me.”

Peter’s fame would also come with a decrease in independence—trips to the movies with Ned or taking girls out on dates would have to come to an end. Selfishly, Tony didn’t want Peter to blame him for taking that away from him. He didn’t want to be the bad guy in Peter’s life.

Ben’s gaze was intense, imploring. “But we can solve that once he’s home, and we know where he is and that he’s not hurt.”

“But there’s still a chance that we can find him,” said Tony. “And if he was kidnapped, then we can assume it was because of me, but if he wasn’t—if it was random, and the kidnappers don’t know who he is—if they realize whose attention they’ve caught, then they’ll panic. We can’t risk that they’ll—” Tony’s words cut off with a surprised gasp.

His arm had just tickled, a phantom pen gliding across his skin in scratchy loops.

It was on the back of his wrist, not the inside like normal, but Tony barely even registered that. He threw himself to his feet and scrabbled at the buttons holding his shirt sleeve in place, silencing the room.

Maybe this was all just a misunderstanding—maybe Peter had skipped school, thinking he would get away with it, and had returned to find his backpack and phone missing. Tony, Ben, and May would scream and yell and punish the kid for what he’d put them through—and then they’d hug him tightly and let him know that everything was forgiven, so long as he was okay and safe.

“Tony?” Steve started.

Ignoring him, Tony finally managed to undo his buttons. He yanked his sleeve up, revealing the words on his wrist.

_Hello, Stark._

The last spark of Tony’s hope sputtered and died.

The handwriting was unfamiliar. Briefly, he wondered if it could be one of Peter’s friends—but it wasn’t Ned’s writing either, and the others only knew him as Tony.

There were no more possible explanations.

Someone had kidnapped Peter.

“Tony?” May asked, her voice thick. “Is it Peter?”

Another message faded onto his skin, still in the same handwriting.

_Is this the right kid, Stark?_

Oh God. Tony’s stomach lurched.

A hand landed on Tony’s shoulder—Rhodey—and he gently took Tony’s wrist, holding it steady. Rhodey scanned the writing and glanced up at the rest of the team, expression somber.

_The kid seems to think so. He was calling for you. Had to shut him up, but he’s cute when he cries._

Fuck. Oh, God.

“I’m gonna be sick,” Tony gasped.

As if from nowhere, Clint thrust a bowl Tony vaguely recognized as being from the kitchen under his nose. He sank to the floor and vomited, chest heaving.

He knew the writing would be photographed for evidence, but that wouldn’t help them find Peter. And that wasn’t Tony’s area—he could track any phone number, check any camera, follow any license plate. Solving a kidnapping should be _easy._ But they had none of those. All they had was a handwriting sample—useless without a matching sample to compare it to.

They were no closer to finding Peter.

***

_It’s okay, Petey. We’re gonna find you. It’ll be okay. I love you._

It was a comfort to write promises on his skin, although Tony didn’t even know if Peter could see it. He didn’t know what conditions Peter was being kept in, and nausea rose in his throat every time he thought about Peter’s wellbeing. But, on the off chance that Peter could see it, he kept writing words of love on his wrists.

And besides, so long as the words kept sinking in, that meant Peter was still alive. Tony didn't think the kidnappers would kill Peter—if they did, they'd die a very slow and painful death—but the reassurance that Peter was okay kept Tony's heart beating steadily.

The kidnappers had gone quiet after a while—an intimidation tactic, Tony had been told. It was working. He was absolutely terrified, and every minute that passed without Peter safe and sound hacked another hour off Tony’s life expectancy.

The living room was still abuzz with activity, even after the sun had gone down and the concrete jungle outside the windows had lit up like a candlelight vigil. The late hour didn’t matter, not inside the penthouse. No-one was sleeping tonight.

The kitchen, where Tony and Ben sat in silence, was dark. Congealed food was pushed to the side, the two of them too emotionally distraught to eat—or help. May had left to try to sleep a few hours ago, but Ben had refused, stating that he needed to be here, just in case.

Tony had tried to help search, he had, but the fear of using his soulmate bond to negotiate for his child’s life had paralyzed him.

Ben, sat on the opposite side of the island, twisted his hands, rough. Tony on the other hand was frozen, unable to move as images of torture and blood and Peter’s face flashed across his vision.

The words burst from his mouth without his consent.

“I’m so sorry.”

Ben glanced up at him. He looked pale and haunted, the fear of knowing his child was in danger draining the life out of him. Tony hadn’t looked in a mirror recently, but he imagined he looked about the same.

“This is all my fault. I promised you I’d keep Peter safe, that him being associated with me wouldn’t mean he can’t lead a normal life. I—and I fucked that all up. Peter obeyed all the rules, it was me that fucked up and let that photo get taken and now—and now Peter’s—he’s—Ben, I—”

Ben looked back down at his hands, the skin white where he tugged at it.

“Tony,” he sighed. “You don’t have to… feel guilty about what’s happened. Yes, I want to be angry. The parent in me wants to blame you and say this never would have happened if it weren’t for you.”

Tony’s throat tightened, but Ben wasn’t done.

“But that’s not fair. Just one look at you and I can see this is killing you as much as it is me. I know you love Peter, and Peter loves you too. And if you weren’t in his life—if the universe had chosen a different soulmate for him—then he wouldn’t be the kid he is today. He adores you, Tony. Even before you met—he loved Tony, his faceless soulmate, and he loved Iron Man. May didn’t approve, but that wouldn’t stop him.”

Ben laughed to himself. His voice cracked, and he ran his fingers through his hair.

“You didn’t release Peter’s identity to the public. You did everything you could to protect him. And you’ve helped him in so many other ways—I can’t thank you enough for the tutoring, or for paying for his treatment after the car crash. I don’t want you blaming yourself for this, Tony, because that doesn’t do justice to everything you’ve done for him.”

Tony clasped his hands together, ignoring how they shook. He couldn’t help but feel that Ben’s faith in him was misplaced.

Peter inspired him, he brightened his day and gave him strength when he was feeling down. And what had Tony done in return? Gotten the kid hurt and kidnapped. It didn’t matter how many times someone told him he meant as much to Peter as Peter did to him—he never quite believed it.

Anyone could tutor the kid, and anyone could pay for his healthcare. He needed to do something _more._

“I’ll get him back to you, Ben. If I only ever do one last thing for him—it’ll be to make sure he’s safe.”

Empty promises, to match the emptiness in Tony’s chest. The two of them fell silent in the quiet kitchen, faint voices filtering in from the living room the only sound.

_We love you, Petey. It’s gonna be okay._

***

The next day brought no new leads and a message from the kidnappers.

_Fifty million and three Iron Man suits._

The money was no problem. Tony would pay a hundred times that without a second thought if it meant Peter never again felt any pain.

_You have twenty-four hours before I release little Petey’s identity._

It was the suits that left the air in the penthouse feeling like barbed wire.

The foreign handwriting on Tony’s skin itched, but he was forbidden by SHIELD’s hostage negotiators to write anything. He sat on a couch in the living room, angrily scratching at the ink, as the Avengers and nameless SHIELD agents argued above his head.

He’d given up listening hours ago, refusing to listen to these people barter with Peter’s life.

The part of Tony that wanted Peter home and wrapped up safely in his arms screamed at him to give them the suits. Twenty-four hours was plenty of time to make all the adjustments he’d need—disable the weaponry, install hidden trackers, set them to self-destruct if tampered with.

But he couldn’t. If the kidnappers realized what he’d done before Peter was safe—no. And besides, they didn’t know who the kidnappers were. The Iron Man suits were too complicated for the average person to understand, but Tony wasn’t so arrogant as to think there weren’t people out there who would be able to bring them back to functionality.

Once that happened, who knows what damage they could wreak before Tony was able to subdue them.

Eventually, JARVIS’s voice brought the arguing to a halt.

“Sir, a video has just been posted online. My facial recognition software has flagged it as featuring Peter.”

Tony’s stomach dropped out from underneath him. He glanced at Ben and May where they sat huddled close together by the windows.

“They said we had twenty-four hours,” May choked, eyes wide.

Tony yanked the nearest laptop closer. He could feel the others gathering around him but didn’t turn to look. “JARVIS, show me.”

In the few seconds it took for the video to appear, Tony’s mind went wild, his mind pasting Peter’s face onto his memories of his own ransom video from Afghanistan. But instead of images of Peter, scared and held at gunpoint, JARVIS opened up a YouTube page. Tony found himself staring at a face he didn’t recognize in the slightest: a kind-eyed, smiling man.

He didn’t relax. Appearances could be deceiving.

Then he registered the title of the video.

 _BEST UNDERRATED RESTAURANTS IN QUEENS_ _|_ _NYC FOODIE_

Tony’s eyebrows tugged down. “JARVIS?”

“The video appears to have been filmed yesterday morning, sir.”

It skipped to partway through. The man stood in a street, his face taking up one half of the screen and the front of a restaurant the other.

Tony caught a whiff of May’s perfume as she leaned in. “That’s—that’s on Peter’s walk to school.”

Weakly, Tony nodded. It was too much to hope, but he was pretty certain that was where he had found Peter’s backpack.

As the man introduced the restaurant behind him, a figure with a very familiar gait walked past in the background. Tony’s heart leaped, and when the figure turned its head towards the camera, they were unmistakable.

Peter.

He was only onscreen for a second before he disappeared out of frame. Just as Tony went to speak, two more figures appeared onscreen dressed all in black, hands in pockets, shoulders hunched. They couldn’t have looked more suspicious if they’d tried.

Tony’s jaw clenched. “JARVIS, get me names.”

The video jumped, cutting to the vlogger crossing the street to enter the restaurant. It was a little unclear how much time had been edited out, but both Peter and the men had vanished—and for a brief second, a van was clearly visible parked outside the alleyway where Tony had found Peter’s backpack.

JARVIS paused the video, but Ben reached out to rewind it, back to the brief few seconds that Peter was in frame. His expression was tight, unreadable.

After a few minutes, JARVIS spoke up. “As the men did not fully face the camera, I was unable to find a match for their features in my system. However, the van seen in the video is insured under the name Gideon Myers.”

A new window popped up, displaying a driver’s license. Dark, unforgiving eyes stared back at Tony as he took in the guy’s features and compared them to what little of the men they could see in the video.

Tony glanced up and caught Natasha’s eye. She nodded.

They had a lead.

***

Once they had a lead, the roomful of America’s greatest minds finally lived up to their title.

It took under an hour to track Myers’ van through New York, the CCTV blind spot he’d staged the kidnapping in not helping him at all now. Once they’d tracked the van to an abandoned warehouse in Brooklyn, it took barely half an hour for SHIELD to get the Avengers all the permits they needed to raid the place.

Tony hugged Ben and May, leaving them with the promise that he would bring Peter back in one piece. They were both shaking with anticipation, and Tony was glad the team hadn’t vetoed him taking part in the rescue mission. Now they’d located Peter he wasn’t physically capable of sitting back.

They took the Quinjet and landed stealthily, a few blocks out, just as night fell. Tony’s hands shook and he breathed heavily as Steve led them into position and, finally, whispered the signal into the comms.

A well-aimed repulsor blast shot the warehouse delivery doors off their hinges. Flashes of red lit up Tony’s HUD as JARVIS highlighted hostiles; there were several of them, lounging on fold-out chairs in the center of the warehouse. They jumped into action as the Avengers descended on them—but they were panicked, unprepared. They weren’t a threat.

Tony grabbed a kidnapper, one who hadn’t managed to draw a weapon in time, and slammed him against a pillar.

_“Where is he?”_

The man’s eyes bulged as he stared into the stern expression of the Iron Man faceplate.

“He’s—he’s at the far end of the corridor—please don’t hurt me—!”

Tony threw the man aside. His repulsors echoed through the gutted warehouse as he flew towards the furthest door down the corridor. He landed with a _clang_ and kicked it open.

The room beyond was small and dark; the light spilling in from the doorway illuminated a slumped figure tied to a chair in the center of the room, mouth taped shut and blindfold tied over his eyes.

_Peter._

Knees weak, Tony threw himself into the room. Peter flinched at the sound of footsteps and struggled against the straps holding him to the chair. Tony stumbled out of the suit and knelt down by Peter, ignoring how it hurt his heart when he cringed away, sobs muffled by the gag. Tony ripped the blindfold off.

Peter blinked tearily, whole body pulled as taut as Clint’s bow.

“Hey. Hey, Petey. It’s okay. It’s me. I’m here.”

Their gazes met for the briefest moment—and then recognition sparked in Peter’s eyes and his face crumpled. With a sob, he threw himself as far forward as his restraints would allow, pressing his face into Tony’s chest. Tony’s hands clutched at his kid, one tangling in Peter’s hair and the other rubbing between his shoulder blades. He savored the hug. His kid, his kid, his kid.

“It’s okay, Petey,” he whispered, and kissed his forehead. “You’re safe now. I’m here. We’re gonna get you home to Ben and May, yeah?”

At the sound of footsteps behind them, Tony tightened his grip on Peter protectively, but it was just Steve. He dropped down by Tony to untie the ropes around Peter’s wrists.

“We got them all,” Steve said as he worked. “The ringleader—Myers—tried to run, but Natasha got him. The cops are on their way.”

Tony nodded, but he didn’t exactly have the headspace for the kidnappers right now. All he could care about was Peter’s wellbeing—the anger would come later, once Peter was patched up in the Tower medbay with Ben and May at his side.

He helped Steve untie the kid. Peter’s arms were strapped down at the wrist and elbow to keep them in place to be written on, and his hoodie sleeves were awkwardly hacked off around his biceps. As Steve reached down to free his ankles, Tony gently peeled the tape off Peter’s face, wincing at how it tugged at his skin.

“Tony,” Peter croaked, reaching out for him like Rhodey’s toddler nephew when he wanted a hug.

He pulled Peter into his arms, holding him close as he shook. Tony couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or from fear, but he cradled Peter close to his chest regardless, relishing the fact that he was still breathing.

“Tony,” Peter said again.

“I’m here, I’m here,” Tony whispered, stroking Peter’s hair. “I’m so sorry, Petey. But we’re gonna get you home now, okay? Ben and May are waiting for you. It’s okay. I’m so glad you’re okay.”

Steve undid the final knot and Peter sagged completely into Tony’s arms. He didn’t appear hurt—a little bruised and scraped up, but not actively bleeding—but that was hardly a comfort when his kid was so distressed and had been through hell the last two days.

Peter nuzzled his face into Tony’s neck. “I could—I could feel you writing to me,” he whispered, voice thick. “Couldn’t see it, but… thank you. Made me feel safe.”

Tony kissed Peter’s hair. “I’m gonna make sure you’re always safe, okay? You always have a bit of me with you. You’re not alone. You’re never alone.”

Peter never should have been added to the long list of people that had been hurt because of Tony—he never should have been hurt at all. He was pure kindness and optimism, but the world was cruel. Tony was going to protect him from it, and he was going to make sure nothing like this ever, ever happened again.

Another kiss, again on Peter’s forehead. _My kid._

***

Tony glanced back through the medbay window. He smiled fondly at the three Parkers, wrapped up in one another’s arms and draped across Peter’s bed. If Tony couldn’t be there in person, he knew that Peter could never be safer than when he was safely held by Ben and May. Tony himself had seen how protective the two of them were over Peter, back when they had first discovered just who their beloved nephew’s soulmate was, and he had experienced their ferocious protectiveness firsthand.

So with Ben and May at Peter’s side, and a Tower full of Avengers on high alert, Tony felt safe enough to leave the kid for the moment. There were things to discuss—a less optimistic security plan, for one—but the lingering adrenaline in Tony’s veins made his hands shake, and after hours of being too distressed to help, he was itching to _move_.

Gideon Myers and his hired muscle had dared to take advantage of Tony’s greatest happiness. Playing bad cop to Natasha’s good cop would help to vent the festering anger in his gut before it consumed him.

Once he was happy that Peter’s kidnappers would never hurt anyone else ever again, he’d go comfort Peter—and probably absolutely spoil the kid rotten with whatever he wanted, too.

For now, he had places to be. And Ben and May weren’t done drinking in the sight of Peter, safe and sound.


	5. Natasha Romanoff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took forever, I'm so sorry! This is what happens when you tell yourself you don't need to outline Chapter 5 because "I'll have decided what I want to write by the time I get there". Spoiler alert: I hadn't! But it's done now, and just in time for Peter's birthday! I'm going to try and get the next chapter up quicker, because I am super excited to be able to work on it finally, but these chapters just keep getting longer!
> 
> Just a warning: this chapter contains discussions of death and mourning. Stay safe, and happy reading! <3

Peter’s room was darkened, dust swirling in the air where thin beams of sunlight poured between the gaps in the blinds. Piles of clothes littered the floor, several used glasses were abandoned on the nightstand, and the room smelled slightly stale. On the bed, all that was visible of Peter was a clump of unwashed curls poking out from under the duvet.

“Pete?” Tony called.

Peter didn’t stir.

With a sigh, Tony glanced down at the tray in his hands. It wasn’t much—just a sandwich and a glass of water—but it would be the most Peter had eaten in one go since the funeral. If he ate it, that was.

Quietly, Tony pushed the door shut, cutting off May and the Avengers’ soft voices in the penthouse living room.

May was a whole other can of worms. She appeared to be coping well, taking advantage of their temporary home in the Tower to spend more time with Pepper and the Avengers. She kept busy and went to Queens a few times a week to visit friends and family. There were moments where she couldn’t keep up the charade—it had only been ten days, after all—but most of the time, she put on a brave face.

And it worried Tony, because he recognized her behavior. She was suppressing her grief for Peter’s sake. It wasn’t healthy, but at least it was healthier than Peter’s reaction.

Tony sat on the bed and patted where he assumed Peter’s shoulder was.

“Hey,” he said gently. “We awake, kiddo?”

Peter made a low noise in the back of his throat.

“I brought you a sandwich. Squished down, with pickles. Just how you like it.”

Peter didn’t respond, still wrapped up in his Avengers duvet cover. Cartoon Iron Man masks and Captain America shields and Thor hammers hid Peter’s face from view. The bed set was a gag Christmas gift from the Avengers, one that had made Peter burst out laughing and promise to use it every time he slept over. Tony would give anything to hear Peter laugh like that again right now.

Tony rubbed Peter’s shoulder. “Pete?”

“Go ‘way.”

“Oh, are we giving orders to Iron Man now?”

“Yes.”

Tony raised an eyebrow. “Well, I only take orders from Cap so I’m gonna have to veto that.”

Peter didn’t respond. This was how he had been since—well, _since._ Since Tony had arrived at a police precinct in Queens to find his kid covered in blood, a haunted look in his eyes. Since the funeral, where Peter hadn’t spoken a single word besides a whispered apology to Ben as he was lowered into the ground. Since he and May had temporarily moved into Avengers Tower, after a trip home to collect clothing had left May sobbing at the scent of Ben’s cologne lingering in the air, at the dog-eared book Ben had left on the table that morning, at the note on the fridge in Ben’s handwriting.

Witnessing their father die would be difficult for anyone. But Peter had seen his uncle be murdered, had been the only person there as Ben bled out, and that wasn’t even mentioning his PTSD from being held hostage. Coping would have been a miracle.

Instead, he rejected any and all offers of comfort, refused to speak to anyone, even Tony and May and Ned, and ate nothing. His cheeks grew gaunt and dark circles permanently bruised his under eyes.

They’d managed to get Peter a week off school, and then he had a week’s break anyway. However, as the day Peter had to go back to school fast approached, Peter still had barely left his bed since Tony had scrubbed the blood from beneath Peter’s nails and left him there all those nights ago.

Tony sighed. “C’mon, kid. I know you don’t want to, but you need to eat. We’re worried about you.”

Peter made a small, bitter noise.

“I’m not gonna let you waste away anymore. I thought I was supposed to have a monopoly on unhealthy coping habits in this tower. So come on. Just one sandwich.”

For a long moment, Peter still didn’t move, but then he burrowed his face deeper under the covers.

“Tony, I don’t…” he whispered, voice thick. “I don’t know what to do.”

Tony set the tray down on the nightstand to give Peter his full attention. “What do you mean, kid?”

Peter drew in a wavering breath. “I don’t… I should have done something, and now I just—I can’t stop thinking about what happened, what I should have done differently, and I—I keep thinking about B-Ben and the last thing I said to him and I—I _just wanna hug him_.” Peter’s voice cracked. “I just wanna hug him and tell him I love him and I c-can’t—”

He broke off into sobs. Tony ran a hand through Peter’s hair, and then Peter sat up and threw himself into Tony’s arms, clinging to his shoulders. Tony hugged him back firmly, frowning at a faint whiff of cologne when he tucked his face into Peter’s neck. Ben’s, he realized, heart breaking open. Peter was wearing one of Ben’s hoodies.

“I don’t know what to do,” Peter sobbed. “I don’t know how to carry on like this.”

Tony shushed him and carded his fingers through his hair, tugging through the tangles.

“What am I meant to do?”

“I don’t know,” Tony admitted, wishing that hugging his kid just a little harder could get rid of his pain and grief. “There’s no cure for the way you’re feeling, Pete. You just have to find a way to cope. And no-one else can do it for you, as much as I wish I could. It’s something you have to find for yourself.”

“But I don’t know _how_ ,” said Peter. “How—how did you do it?”

Tony cringed, phantom alcohol and vomit burning his tongue. “You don’t wanna do it the way I did it, kiddo. But this isn’t healthy, either. I can’t tell you how to carry on, but I can help you take the first few steps.” He pulled away from the hug and placed the tray between them. “A sandwich, a shower, and some fresh air. It’ll help. I promise.”

Peter finally looked up at him. His face was pale, eyes bruised, cheeks streaked with tears both dry and new. He looked broken—far more broken than any fourteen-year-old should ever, ever be. But he looked up at Tony with so much trust that it broke Tony’s heart a little.

Reluctantly, Peter picked up the sandwich and took a bite. He ate slowly at first before he seemed to realize just how hungry he was. Ravenous, he finished the sandwich in only two more bites.

He gulped down the glass of water, then wiped his mouth. “… Thanks, Tony.”

“No worries. And Pete… I know it’s difficult, but isolating yourself isn’t going to help. You might feel like you’re alone, but you’re not. You know I’m always here with you”—Tony tapped the inside of Peter’s wrist— “whenever you need me. And you have May, and Ned, and the rest of the team. We’re all looking out for you, Pete. You don’t have to go through this alone. Not unless you choose to.”

Peter looked down at his lap, tracing the skin on his forearm, and didn’t say anything.

Tony sighed. “C’mon. How about you have a shower, and I’ll change your bedsheets. You’re starting to smell, kid.”

That forced a self-deprecating laugh out of Peter. “Yeah, I know.”

As Tony left to go fetch some sheets, he glanced back at Peter. The kid was still, staring down at his Avengers sheets, a crease between his eyebrows.

***

As the days passed, Peter started to adjust.

He no longer slept the days away, refusing to eat. He joined them for lunches and dinners—they were working on breakfast—and, though he refused to talk about Ben, he no longer shied away from joining in on the general conversation. He even agreed to start talking to his therapist again, whom he hadn’t seen since before Ben died. The first time Tony heard him laugh again was during an afternoon Peter spent wiping the floor with any Avenger that dared challenge him at Super Smash Bros.

Steve, bless him, had only offered to play after realizing there was an Avengers DLC and he would be able to play as Captain America.

“This is ridiculous,” he’d complained after Peter beat him a third time. “I _am_ Captain America. How can I be this bad at playing _myself?”_

Peter had laughed, leaning forwards eagerly to prep another game. “Maybe it’s time you thought about hanging up the shield. You just clearly don’t have what it takes!”

Tony had met May’s eye where she was helping Sam prepare dinner; the two of them shared a brief, relieved look.

Eventually, a couple days before school started again and Peter and May were due to move back to Queens, Peter took the initiative to invite Ned to the Tower. Seeing the two of them talking and laughing together helped ease some of the tension that had settled over the penthouse over the last few weeks.

It was only Ned’s second or third time visiting the Tower, and his first time meeting the Avengers. Peter spent the majority of _that_ interaction cringing at Ned’s fanboying, and then the rest of the day denying that he’d been the exact same way when he’d met the Avengers.

Just as they finished dinner that day, FRIDAY interrupted their conversation.

“Boss, SHIELD has issued the call to assemble.”

Immediately, the Avengers shot to their feet, talks of a movie after dinner forgotten. Ned’s face lit up in excitement, but Peter, May, and Pepper were used to unexpected Avengers missions and barely reacted. Well—as Tony shot a hasty _goodbye_ to the non-Avengers in the room, he caught Peter staring after them with a contemplative expression.

Tony didn’t stop to think about it.

***

After a week or so of Peter coasting along as best he could, something went wrong again.

“His grades are dropping,” May said to Tony on the phone, when she had her day off and Peter was at school. “He’s quit robotics and marching band, and he’s been sneaking out—he doesn’t know I know. His therapist told me he’s completely closed off now—he won’t talk about his PTSD or his grief. I don’t know what to do, Tony. I’ve tried talking to him, but he just gets so defensive.”

Tony sighed, his gaze wandering over to Peter’s desk in the corner of the lab, where he did homework before Tony let him help with the Iron Man suits. “I’ll try talking to him later. Whatever’s going on, he probably just doesn’t want to worry you.”

***

“Hey, Tony!”

Tony looked up from the energy core he was working on. Peter burst into the lab as he always did—in a flurry of activity and stories to tell. He threw his bag down on his desk, talking about something that had happened at school that day. Tony only half-listened. Peter’s hair was sticking up at all angles, and his forehead shone with sweat.

When Peter eventually stopped to take a breath, Tony glanced down at his watch and said, “You’re kinda late today. Did Happy get stuck in traffic?”

Peter stilled slightly where he was pulling his homework out of his backpack. “Uh, Happy didn’t come to get me.”

Tony looked up sharply. “Then where the hell is he? FRIDAY—”

“No—it’s okay,” said Peter, dropping his backpack onto the floor. “I, um, asked him not to pick me up anymore.”

They briefly made eye contact; Peter broke it immediately.

“And why wasn’t I informed of this decision?” Tony asked. “You know why Happy picks you up, Pete. I don’t want you taking the subway.”

“I didn’t—” Peter shook his head. “I just… um, I know Happy doesn’t really enjoy it, and people ask questions about it, so I just thought it would be… better if I just made my own way here.”

Tony pressed his lips together, desperately trying to keep a lid on his temper. “Again, why wasn’t I informed?” He didn’t want to, but— “You have a security plan for a _reason_ , Pete.”

Peter rolled his eyes. “I _know_ that. But nothing’s gonna happen if I—if I make my own way here. No-one knows who I am!”

“Yeah, we thought that, didn’t we? Turns out that when someone is planning to kidnap you, they don’t tend to give you advance notice.”

Peter’s mouth snapped shut, his eyes wide. _Shit._ Tony’s train of thought derailed—shit, shit, maybe triggering the kid with PTSD was not exactly conducive to the discussion they were meant to be having—but then Peter’s face flushed.

“Don’t use that against me! And that’s not gonna happen again. I know better now.”

“You’re fourteen. I don’t care how grown-up you feel or how strong you think you are, you don’t stand a chance against a fully grown man.”

Peter looked down. “I _do._ You always do this. You always overreact to everything! What’s the worst that could happen if I take the subway here?”

Tony shot Peter a flat look. “If that wasn’t rhetorical, I’m gonna start questioning your intelligence.”

“It isn’t a big deal!” Peter snapped.

“ _Not a big deal_ , huh? Just like how you quitting all your extracurriculars and sneaking out at night isn’t a big deal?”

Peter blinked for a moment, thrown. “I still do academic decathlon.”

“That’s not the point, Peter!”

“Then what is? The fact that you and May talk about me behind my back? What does it matter if I quit band and robotics! —and I still have decathlon for my college applications,” he added as though this was a discussion he had already had before.

Tony resisted the urge to pull out his hair. “Nice try, but we’re not talking about college applications. You’re sneaking out, dropping your hobbies, and your grades are suffering. And now you’ve told Happy not to pick you up anymore? You’re not in trouble, Pete—we’re _worried_ about you. I know how hard this must be for you, and I don’t want you to bottle everything up. Talking will help, I promise it will. You just need to be honest with me.”

For a moment, Peter stared—but then his eyes narrowed. “May put you up to this.”

Were all teenagers this impossible? “Yes, kid. You’ve caught us. May and I talk about you to make sure you’re happy and healthy. What a conspiracy.”

Peter looked away and shoved his hands in his pockets, eyes fixed somewhere around his backpack on the floor. When he made no move to speak, Tony sighed, tapping a screwdriver against the open energy core on his workbench.

“Look, Pete. There’s no conspiracy. May and I can tell you’re struggling, and we just want to help you. Remember what I said? About not having to be alone unless you choose to?”

Peter was silent, but Tony knew he did.

“I meant it, kid. So come on. Talk to me. Have you done something you’re scared to tell us about? I promise I won’t get mad. I just wanna work things out with you.”

Still no response from Peter. God, he was making this hard on Tony. Peter knew how difficult Tony found the whole talking-about-your-emotions thing. Although he was trying his hardest to improve—Pepper had lent him her veritable library of self-help books—practicing his skills on a non-verbal teenager was kind of making him feel like he was back at stage one.

Come on, kid, he silently begged. Give me something.

What he got was a fake smile as Peter turned and packed his homework back into his backpack.

“Thanks, Tony, but I think I’m gonna go. I’ve just remembered I’ve got a project to work on, so I’m gonna go to Ned’s and work on it together—”

“Peter—”

“Bye!”

“Wait for Happy to drive you!” Tony called after Peter’s retreating figure. The door banged shut behind him.

Tony groaned with frustration. _Shit._ Teenagers. How had Peter successfully managed to make Tony feel bad for being worried about him?

By the time Tony contacted Happy and sent him down to the garage, Peter was long gone.

***

Two days later, and Tony hadn’t seen Peter since. He hadn’t even written, not unless Tony wrote first, and even then, his responses were curt. According to May, his sneaking out had just gotten worse—she barely knew where he was the majority of the time he wasn’t at school.

After Tony had reported to May that his attempt at talking to Peter had ended disastrously, she’d sighed and they’d agreed to take a step back and stay watchful. If Peter was going to lash out every time they talked to him, then they’d just have to keep an eye on him and hope he’d come to his senses before he got himself in trouble.

Tony wasn’t quite happy with that, but as Peter’s parent, it was May’s decision.

Still, that hadn’t stopped Tony from venting his frustrations to the Avengers. Sam had offered to talk to Peter, but Tony had refused—no point convincing Peter that the Avengers were a part of his imagined conspiracy as well. The others had merely offered their condolences and, where appropriate, their experiences with their own children. Meanwhile, Natasha had sat in the corner, listening intently with steepled fingers.

It had all been entirely too wholesome and healthy and like a group therapy session for Tony's tastes. To make up for that, Tony had retreated into the lab the minute it ended and refused to leave since. He always worked best when he should probably be doing something else, and the progress he had made on his prototype nanobots while ignoring the Peter Problem had left him smug at his own brilliance.

At least, until FRIDAY sheepishly piped up just as the streaks of golden sunlight began to fade that evening.

“Boss, Natasha Romanoff is calling.”

Tony didn’t look up from where he was busy correcting an error in his coding. “I thought I put you on Do Not Disturb.”

“You did, boss. However, this is the sixth time she has called in the past ten minutes.”

“Yeah, well, Natasha Fatale isn’t exempt from the Do Not Disturb mandate.”

He continued to work on the code, but a minute later, his arm tickled. Tony definitely hadn’t written anything since the last monosyllabic response from Peter. He waved away his holo screens and rolled up his sleeve, eager to see what Peter was reaching out about.

His excitement was short-lived.

 _Answer the phone, Stark,_ was written on his arm in Natasha’s swooping cursive.

Tony scowled. _Hey, give my kid his arm back._

Natasha’s response was prompt. _Your kid has been stabbed. Answer the damn phone._

Tony’s heart leaped into his mouth.

“Boss, Natasha Romanoff is—”

_“Answer it!”_

The sound of New York traffic burst through FRIDAY’s speakers.

“That got his attention,” came Natasha’s dry voice.

Tony twisted his pen, almost snapping it in half. “Romanoff, if you only said that to get me to answer the phone—”

“Oh, don’t worry. I’ve got one punctured little teenage menace right here with me. Blood and all. And that’s not all he’s got to tell you about.”

A slightly pained groan of exasperation. “Oh my God, I’m fine—”

Tony was already on his feet, sprinting for the nearest balcony. “FRIDAY, suit. Program in their location.”

“No, don’t—it’s not that bad—”

“Best hurry, Tony,” said Natasha. “He’s already delusional from the blood loss.”

Tony slammed through the doors to the living room balcony just as a suit arrived.

“I’m not delusional!” Peter protested, then groaned in pain. “This is—this is fine. And why—why were you even stalking me in the first place?”

“Looks like it's a good thing I was. What were you planning on doing about this otherwise?”

Tony stepped into the suit and blinked at Peter and Natasha’s location when it lit up inside his HUD. Somewhere in Queens. What had happened? Had Peter been mugged? And what the hell was Natasha doing in Queens?

“I'm on my way,” he said as he took off and weaved between skyscrapers.

A counter popped up on his HUD, a slightly passive-aggressive reminder from FRIDAY to keep his breathing steady. Reluctantly, he followed her silent instructions to breathe in rhythm until his chest loosened.

Tony had always been skeptical about breathing exercises to calm his anxiety. It wasn’t his breathing he was worried about, it was Peter being in varying degrees of trouble, and breathing deeply wasn’t going to fix that. But, after Tony had very nearly landed himself in hospital in the wake of Peter’s kidnapping, he finally gave in to the combined pressure from his therapist and Sam and practiced the techniques he had been taught.

Surprisingly, they actually helped. Who could have seen that one coming?

FRIDAY beeped to inform him he’d arrived; he landed heavily in an alley, eyes immediately landing on the two forms huddling behind a dumpster. There was so much red. Natasha’s hair. Peter’s jumper. And the blood.

Tony dropped to the floor by Natasha, hovering over Peter. The kid was pale and visibly in pain, but at Tony’s arrival, he threw his head back with an exasperated sigh.

“I'll be _fine_ ,” he snapped.

Natasha was holding something red to Peter’s thigh. She lifted it away slightly, revealing a thin wound.

“FRIDAY?”

“My scanners suggest the wound will require stitches, boss, but that it is not immediately life-threatening.”

The band of anxiety around Tony’s ribs loosened a little further, but Tony’s hands were still shaking, and he kind of wanted to throw up.

“What happened? A mugging?” No response. Peter and Natasha exchanged a loaded look before Peter looked away, resigned and almost… embarrassed? “Romanoff? What the fuck has happened to my kid?”

“Tony.” She lifted the red thing she was holding against Peter's thigh. For the first time, Tony noticed the goggles sewn into the fabric, the grid pattern drawn on with what looked like Sharpie.

His brow furrowed. Natasha pointed, and Tony followed her gesture to Peter’s ridiculous get-up. He wore a cut-off hoodie and sweatpants in red and blue, with a wobbly spider drawn on the chest. Peter’s face had gone red to match, and he refused to make eye contact.

Natasha sounded, if anything, amused. “Thought you might want to make your acquaintance with our friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man.”

***

_“You—”_

“May, I swear, I had nothing to do with this.”

“He’s always wanted to be like you!” May snapped, jabbing a finger in Tony’s direction. “Even before he worked out your identity. He always wanted to be a superhero when he grew up! And now _this!”_ She shook her head. “I knew you were a bad influence on him. He would never have done this if it weren’t for you!”

“Give me a break!” Tony ran his fingers through his hair and turned away from Natasha and May. They were gathered at the far end of the medbay from Peter’s room for an emergency meeting re: Peter’s spider… thing. “You think I want him to be putting himself in danger like this? No. Of course I don’t! This is the last thing I want for him.”

Years before they’d even met, Tony had been terrified by the idea of what Peter might learn from him. Peter should never feel like he had to sacrifice his own safety for the sake of others the way Tony did—but somehow, somewhere along the line, that was the conclusion Peter had arrived at.

“I just want to keep him safe, same as you,” Tony continued. “If it was me that put this idea in his head, then I regret it. I never wanted him to take after me. At _all,_ but that’s another conversation. This had nothing to do with me.”

May folded her arms across her chest and breathed deeply. “What even happened?” she asked Natasha. “You said he was, what? Climbing walls and trying to stop a mugging?”

The words were forced, like she couldn’t quite believe that Peter was climbing walls like a—well, like a spider, Tony supposed.

Natasha nodded. “I followed him after school. I wanted to ensure he wasn’t caught up in anything potentially harmful. He’s got some sort of… vigilante thing going on. Stopping car crashes, muggings and the like.”

“But you said he was _climbing on walls,”_ May emphasized.

“He’s enhanced,” said Natasha, bluntly. “I couldn’t get all the details out of him—he was pretty angry when he realized I’d followed him—but he said something about getting bit by a spider on a field trip.”

Tony shook his head. This story didn’t sound any more plausible the second time around than it did the first, and judging by the crease between May’s eyebrows, it didn’t make any more sense to her than it did them.

Then her face softened in realization and tightened in anger again.

“The trip to Oscorp.” She gestured with a pointed finger. “He was sick for days afterwards.”

Tony balked at the memory of cleaning vomit off a sobbing, feverish Peter.

"FRI said that was the flu. You're telling me that was a _spider bite?_ And how the hell did Peter wind up enhanced after getting bit by a spider?”

“I don’t know,” said Natasha. “He wasn’t exactly in a sharing mood after the stalking and the stabbing.”

Something shady was going on at Oscorp by the sounds of it—something that had now directly affected Tony’s kid. A talk with SHIELD was likely in store somewhere in Tony’s future, once the Peter side of things had calmed down. He couldn’t allow whatever the hell was happening at Oscorp to continue.

“So, what?” May said. “He comes back from Oscorp enhanced and then decides to don a mask and start fighting crime?”

It was the kind of leap of thinking only a teenager was capable of.

“Apparently so,” said Natasha.

Tony dug his fingers into his left arm. “I wonder if it’s some sort of… coping mechanism. Not a healthy one, obviously, but his way of dealing with”—he glanced at May— “what’s happened.”

Tony would be the one to know about becoming a superhero to deal with trauma. Goddammit, why was Peter taking after him in all the wrong ways? He’d only intended to pass on his sense of humor and style, and a hefty chunk of his financial assets. Never the guilt and the pain and the struggle that came with feeling like the fate of the world rested on your shoulders.

May frowned. “What do you mean? As in, he’s going out, deliberately being self-sacrificial? To cope?”

“I guess,” he said. “I’m not a psychiatrist. We’d need to get Sam involved, see if he can get Peter to open up a little bit. Or Peter’s therapist, if we can actually get him to talk to her.”

May set her jaw. “I’m taking his… his suit. I don’t want him going out like that again. I know you two are used to risking your lives for the greater good, but Peter is _fourteen._ He should be—should be worrying about his homework and girls and being cool, not fighting crime. This isn’t safe. I don’t think I can handle—”

Her words were cut off by a crash at the other end of the medbay. Tony startled, and a moment later, a door crashed open and Peter stumbled out, bracing himself against a wall and heavily favoring his good leg.

“Peter!” Tony cried.

“Peter, you’re meant to be resting—” said May.

Peter shook his head as he limped towards them. “I could hear you arguing.” Tony’s brow furrowed and Peter sighed. “I, uh, I might have, um, super-hearing? Just a little? And I could kind of hear every word you were saying?”

Natasha scoffed. “Oh, Clint will _love_ that.”

Peter ignored her and turned to May, eyes beseeching. “May, please. Please don’t take away my suit. Please. I have to keep being Spider-Man, I can’t just stop—”

May shook her head. “It’s too dangerous, Peter. You’ve already been stabbed. And who knows what other injuries you might have been hiding from me! This is not up for discussion. We were all worried about you—I assumed you were taking drugs, not going out picking fights with criminals!”

“No, I’m not! And it’s not dangerous—okay, maybe a little, but I can defend myself!”

“I said that this is _not up for discussion,_ Peter!”

“You’re not listening to me! Please, you can’t take this away from me!” Peter turned to Tony, desperate. “Tony, _please.”_

His huge brown eyes glistened with tears. Goddammit, this kid knew how to tug at Tony’s heartstrings.

But this wasn’t up to Tony. As much as he wished he were Peter’s parent, he wasn’t—and he made a very conscious effort to never undermine May’s authority as Peter’s parent when it came to rules and decision making.

Tony sighed, forcing himself to look away from Peter’s eyes. “Pete…”

“No, Tony, please. I have to do this. I have to help people, I have to—” Peter’s voice cracked. He planted a hand flat against the wall to stabilize himself. “I have to help because I—because I couldn’t h—help Ben.” He broke down into sobs.

May sucked in a sharp breath. Tony glanced at Natasha, who looked about as lost as Tony felt.

Peter lowered his head, not meeting anyone’s gaze. “I could have helped him. I could have _saved_ him. But I didn’t, and now he’s—he’s—so I have to help. I have the power to help, so I have to, or—or everything bad that happens is my fault.”

Tony stared at Peter, mind swirling. The haunted look in his eyes, the way he couldn’t handle his grief—had this all been because he thought he was somehow _responsible_ for Ben’s murder? Oh, this kid.

“Peter,” said Natasha, her voice softer than Tony had ever heard it. “You can’t hold the weight of the world on your shoulders. As much as you want to, you can’t always save everyone.”

Peter looked up at her, sincere. “If you take away Spider-Man, then I won’t be saving _anyone.”_

May stepped forwards and stroked Peter’s hair out of his face. “It’s not your responsibility to be saving anyone, baby.”

“But it _is,”_ Peter insisted, swallowing down a sob. “I couldn’t save Ben, but other people’s Bens are in trouble every single day. If I have the power to stop people going through what I did, why wouldn’t I?”

“Because I want you to be safe,” said May, gently. “What happened isn’t your fault, and if Ben were here, he’d just want you to be safe, too.”

“But it _is_ my fault. I have to help.” Peter screwed up his face and turned to Tony. “Tony,” he begged, wincing slightly when he rested his weight on his bad leg.

Tony glanced at May, whose eyes were still hard.

He sighed, avoiding looking at Peter. “C’mon, Pete. You should be resting. Let’s get you back to bed.”

Peter’s face fell at Tony’s dismissal. He twitched away from Tony’s offered hand and, with one last betrayed look, started off towards his room, holding himself up with the wall.

“I can do it myself.”

Tony watched him go. Shit. He hated having to tell Peter no—spoiling people he cared about was just in his nature. He adjusted his cuffs and glanced at May, who looked about as torn as Tony felt. The atmosphere was prickly, and so uncomfortable that Tony had to force down a physical reaction.

“Right. Well, if you need me, I’ll be in the lab.”

Neither May nor Natasha deigned to respond. By the looks in their eyes, it was obvious they were fully aware what he was doing by escaping to where they were not welcome, but neither quite had the energy to object.

***

Staying up all night stress-building a suit wasn’t exactly the healthiest way of coping, but it was better than raiding the bar upstairs.

Tony wiped his clammy hands on his pants, trying to get the wiring right on the sensors in the breastplate. His hands were shaking too hard to work properly and it was driving him insane. That, and Peter’s face running in circles through his mind.

He had often wondered why, exactly, the universe had decided to pair him and Peter together.

Don’t get him wrong—he was so, so glad it had. He adored Peter, and with every day that passed, he came to love the kid even more. Pre-Peter Tony would have doubted that he would be able to feel that level of unconditional love for anyone, ever, but Peter had a way of bringing the best out of you.

The kid appreciated his sense of humor (and promised not to tell when a joke that wasn’t age-appropriate occasionally slipped out) and could keep up with Tony’s scientific ramblings. He fit perfectly into Tony’s life and got along like a house on fire with everyone Tony cared about. The Avengers loved to bully Tony by writing to him via Peter, and as much as Happy complained about driving Peter places, Tony knew he found the kid endearing. Peter, Rhodey and Pepper were a particularly dangerous combination—the three of them knew far too much about Tony for Tony’s liking, and they could probably take over the world if given the opportunity.

Tony still didn’t want kids of his own—crying, vomiting babies did not prompt any parental affection in him—but he thought of Peter as his own son, and finally understood why someone would want to endure the crying phase.

Having a son was _awesome_. Peter acquiring Tony’s little idiosyncrasies or picking up his favorite turns of phrase always left a surprisingly warm feeling in Tony’s chest, and he hated to think about what his life might have been like if Peter was never a part of it.

But as much as he loved and adored Peter, he still wondered _why_.

Soulmates were two kindred spirits, the perfect complement to one another. A healthy relationship with your soulmate brought out the best in both of you, each half of the whole able to teach something to the other.

So why had the universe paired him with a random kid from Queens, thirty years his junior? Why not Rhodey, or one of the Avengers? Why some kid so random that Tony couldn’t see how they would have ended up meeting, had Peter not worked out Tony’s identity? Maybe if he’d ended up working for Stark Industries in the future, but it seemed improbable.

He just didn’t quite understand why, specifically, Tony had been paired with Peter.

Or at least, he hadn’t understood, until he saw Peter in a homemade superhero suit, bleeding from a wound he’d acquired saving a stranger, and clarity had hit him like a train.

Peter was destined to be a superhero. And without Tony, he would be lost—what would he have done tonight, if he hadn’t known Tony? How long could he have lasted, a teenage vigilante with no allies to help him?

They didn’t have to find out. Because Peter _did_ have Tony.

He threw down his pliers, resolve settling through him. He knew what he had to do—what the _right_ thing to do was. He suspected this wasn’t going to down well with the Avengers and May, but the universe never made a mistake.

Tony and Peter were soulmates for a reason. Peter had fulfilled his end of the deal, teaching Tony to love and care unconditionally, and bringing out the best in him.

It was finally time for Tony to uphold his end of the deal.

***

“—and you’ll have a strict curfew, and FRIDAY will have to know where you are at all times. Most likely I’ll be putting a tracker in your new suit. And FRIDAY will alert me if your vitals go out of whack and I _will_ be checking up on you if I think something’s wrong, I don’t care if you think it cramps your style—”

“You’re gonna make me a new suit?” Peter’s eyes lit up with wonder, the rest of what Tony had been saying completely forgotten.

Tony sighed, shaking his head. They’d hammer the point of the conversation home later.

“Yep. Absolutely state-of-the-art, multi-million-dollar suit coming right your way. With a direct pipeline to both me and May, so don’t even _think_ about getting caught up in something you know we won’t approve of.”

Peter picked at the sheet of his hospital bed. “And May’s… okay with this?”

 _That_ had been a difficult conversation, trying to explain to May that Tony did, in fact, think it was a _great_ idea to send her fourteen-year-old nephew out to fight crime in spider-themed pajamas. She’d taken a lot of convincing, but she’d eventually given in. Her biggest concern was forever Peter’s safety. On the condition that Tony could prove he was keeping Peter as safe as possible, she was (tentatively) willing to let the whole vigilante deal continue.

“It took the rest of her yearly quota of trust she has in me, but yes,” Tony said. Peter’s face lit up anew, and Tony couldn’t bite back a fond smile. “So you’re gonna do me a favor and not get stabbed again, okay? Because I really don’t have any arguments left to convince her this is a good idea a second time.”

Peter nodded earnestly. “I will, I promise! Thank you so much, Tony!”

“Great. I’ve always wanted a sidekick. Listen: Iron Man and Spider-Boy. Imagine the action figures we could sell.”

Peter looked scandalized. “ _Tony._ It’s Spider- _Man,_ and he isn’t a sidekick! I’ll sell my own action figures, thank you very much.”

“Oh, so you’ll be funding the multi-million-dollar suit yourself, will you? Mr. Independent Hero?”

“Uh—well—”

Tony nudged Peter. “Sounds like you’re my sidekick, Spider-Boy.”

“I hate you. Just you wait. This is my supervillain origin story.”

The thought of Peter, with his fluffy bedhead and puppy dog eyes, becoming a supervillain was so ridiculous as to be adorable. Tony suppressed a laugh and ruffled said curls. “I’m terrified, Underoos.”


	6. No One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> She's so long... but she's here!! She's posted!!
> 
> Warnings for alcoholism and brief suicidal thoughts in this chapter.
> 
> And, uh... enjoy >:)

“Shots for the birthday boy!” Clint shouted as he boarded the Quinjet, holding aloft Smirnoff and shot glasses.

Peter, in the Spider-suit sans the mask, jumped out of his seat and cheered at Clint’s entrance.

“Uh—nuh-uh!” Tony yelled and grabbed Peter’s shoulder to push him back into his seat. “Nope. The kid isn’t twenty-one yet. I’m not taking the fall for you when May finds out.”

Sam boarded behind Clint. “He’s eighteen today and we’re going to Quebec, Tony. If he doesn’t seize this opportunity, he’s doing it wrong.”

“Yeah, I’ll let you explain that line of thinking to May. And he’s not eighteen until nine-thirty this evening. You’re not corrupting him while it’s technically still illegal.”

Peter turned to look at him, nose screwed up. “How the—what—how do you know _exactly when I was born?”_

“I’m Iron Man. I know everything.”

Natasha boarded, patting Peter on the back on her way past. “May told him while they were on the phone yesterday.”

Tony raised an eyebrow. “Uh, that’s creepy. I thought you were out while I was talking to May.”

Natasha smiled. “Not as creepy as knowing exactly when Peter was born.”

“He’s my kid! I know everything about him!”

“Not a kid anymore,” Clint interjected. He lifted the Smirnoff again, a wordless offer. “C’mon, Spider-Boy.”

“Spider-Adult,” Peter corrected.

Sam scoffed. “Why do you still look fourteen, then?”

It was at that point that Steve finally boarded the Quinjet, completing their line-up for today’s mission. He laughed and shook his head when he saw Clint’s stash.

“I don’t want to spoil the party,” he said, “but how about we aim to complete the mission while fully sober?”

“Consider the party officially spoiled,” said Clint. “You’re aware alcohol isn’t prohibited anymore, right, old man?”

Steve raised an eyebrow. “And are _you_ aware that I was fifteen when the prohibition was repealed?”

Clint waved a hand. “Technicalities.”

“Well, I want us to take this mission seriously,” said Steve, sobering the atmosphere inside the Quinjet. “Hydra has grown more powerful recently, and that can’t be allowed to continue. SHIELD intel suggests that this base is prominent in the hierarchy. We need to take it down. And aim to capture, not kill, wherever possible. If we get someone important, this mission could be the key to taking Hydra down once and for all.”

Tony nodded. The Avengers had been suffering with Hydra’s existence for years. Even Peter had grown disillusioned with their constant missions taking down base after base, and usually Peter’s reaction to even the most grueling of missions was childlike excitement at joining the Avengers.

“So let’s keep the celebrations until after,” Steve finished with a wry smile in Clint’s direction.

“Sir, yes sir,” said Clint.

Steve nodded and headed towards the front of the Quinjet, where Natasha was busy prepping for take-off. Tony sank into one of the seats lining the jet and pulled out his phone, intending to get ahead on his business emails. Before he could, his eyes landed on Peter. He watched for a moment as Peter discussed a bug in Red Wing’s programming with Sam and an idea Peter had had to help fix it.

Against Tony’s will, he began to feel choked up.

He couldn’t help it, although he knew he would be mocked relentlessly if any of the Avengers noticed.

His kid… wasn’t a kid anymore.

He no longer looked at Peter and saw a child, but rather a young man. You just couldn’t go to battle with someone, save their life and have yours saved by them over and over and over again until you’d lost count of who owed who, and still think of them as a child.

Blinking away a sudden mistiness in his eyes—what could have caused that? –Tony cast one last, fond look in Peter’s direction and then turned away to focus on his emails. He’d answer some, and then discuss the mission in greater detail with Steve.

The mission came first. He needed to focus on that, and then afterward, he could devote the day to celebrating his favorite person in the whole world.

***

“Tony, how do you say _fuck you_ in French?”

Tony rolled his eyes. Okay, maybe there was still some child in Peter.

“Please don’t antagonize the Hydra goons, Peter.” Tony fired a gauntlet and knocked a Hydra soldier against a tree, cracking the bark. Bullets bounced off the Iron Man armor as gunfire rained from behind him. Tony reconsidered. “Any more than necessary.”

“I know you know how!” Peter said over the comms with a grunt of exertion. “Mr. Private School Educated—woah! Hey, come back here!”

“Tony, how are things looking on your end?” asked Steve. “I could use some air support.”

FRIDAY automatically identified the Hydra soldiers firing at him, taking them all out with a series of well-aimed bullets. Tony pulled up a map of the area on his HUD, the trackers embedded in every Avenger’s comms lighting up with their location. Tony’s eyes glanced over the spider symbol sprinting across the south-west corner of the map—where was Peter headed? All that was down there was an abandoned warehouse—and zeroed in on Cap’s location. The shield icon was situated firmly within the north-east quadrant.

“FRIDAY?”

“The vicinity appears to be cleared of hostiles, boss.”

“Perfect. On my way, Cap.”

His repulsors whirred as he wove between trees and then shot up into the air. For a moment, he had a perfect birds-eye view of the Hydra compound hidden in the forest. He couldn’t see Clint or Natasha, his HUD telling him that they were busy infiltrating the main building. Sam was battling a few goons on a rooftop, and Tony caught a glimpse of Peter in the distance chasing several soldiers into a warehouse.

Tony swallowed down the urge to tell Peter to be careful. Back when Peter first became Spider-Man, Tony had worried that he wouldn’t be able to adapt to being a mentor. He just didn’t have the patience. But after a slightly rocky start, looking out for Peter had become second nature.

What was proving a _lot_ harder was allowing Peter more independence on missions.

Tony trusted his abilities as Spider-Man, and he couldn’t keep babysitting him forever. Goddamn did he want to, though.

He caught sight of Steve in the distance, who was mostly holding his own against a group of Hydra soldiers. However, the rapidly approaching tank could potentially cause a problem.

The tank appeared to have the same opinion of Tony, because its turret rotated and its gun swiveled up to aim at him.

“How considerate,” Tony muttered as the barrel moved into the perfect position.

A shoulder-cannon aimed directly down the barrel took the tank out in a burst of orange flame. Steve turned and saluted Tony with his shield before they fell into the motions of battle together; the two of them functioned like a well-oiled machine after years of training and experience on the field.

After a few minutes, FRIDAY beeped in warning and Peter’s vitals appeared in the corner of Tony’s HUD. The kid’s heart rate and breathing were going crazy.

“Kid, we alright?” Tony asked, pulling up Peter’s location. Still in the south-west quadrant.

“Um—I think so? I chased these guys into this warehouse, but now I can’t find them and my Spidey-sense is going crazy.”

Tony shot at a soldier sneaking up behind Steve. “Okay. Keep a level head, alright? Listen to your senses just like you do in training, and let us know if you need backup—”

“Tony?”

Peter’s voice wobbled slightly, and it stabbed through Tony’s heart like a stake.

“Kid?”

“Tony, I think something’s wr—”

An ear-splitting burst of static; Peter’s comm cut out.

A moment later, something exploded in the distance. A flash of light lit up the horizon and then a deep _boom_ reverberated through Tony’s sternum. Trees snapped and windows shattered as the shockwave ripped through the compound.

For a moment, there was an eerie stillness.

Tony’s concentration slipped and he veered to the side, FRIDAY automatically stabilizing him the only thing keeping him in the air.

“Peter?” he said weakly.

There was no response.

“Someone get to Peter, _now!”_ Steve ordered.

“On it!” called Clint.

Tony was frozen.

“FR—FRIDAY, get me Peter’s vitals.”

It took her a gut-wrenchingly long moment to respond.

“I’m sorry, boss, but I have lost contact with Karen.”

No. No, no, no. _No._

All logic abandoned him, replaced with a burning need to get to his kid, to make sure he was safe.

His repulsors roared as he deserted Steve and flew in the direction he had last seen Peter. He rose above the trees and his eyes immediately landed on the burning carcass of the empty warehouse. Fire licked at the smashed-out windows and smoke curled towards the sky above.

And Peter was somewhere inside.

No. No, no, no.

His kid couldn’t be inside, he _couldn’t._

He shot towards the burning warehouse, pushing his suit to the max—this suit’s specialty was combat, not speed. Panicked, Tony didn’t pay attention to the warnings popping up in his peripheral vision.

“Tony, look out!” cried Sam.

Red lit up across his HUD. Something flashed in the corner of his vision and he swerved wildly, but he was too late to avoid the surface-to-air missile aimed his way.

Pain snapped across his flank as a flash of light blinded him. His stomach swooped as the suit lost power and he began to plummet towards the ground. The last thing Tony saw before everything went black was Sam, flying towards him with one desperate hand outstretched.

***

Tony woke up, and immediately regretted it.

His mind felt foggy, but it wasn’t quite enough to dull the pain radiating through his entire body. He felt as though he’d been squeezed inside a tin can and shaken around by a tantrum-ing toddler which, he thought as memories of missiles and falling flitted across his mind, wasn’t too inaccurate.

For a moment, all he could focus on was the pain and the way it made nausea rise in the back of his throat. Then the rest of his senses came online. The air around him was chilled, and an engine rumbled somewhere beneath him. Voices had that distant quality they always did when flying, so they were probably in the Quinjet. He couldn’t make out anything the voices were saying. He could barely even recognize them as being those of the Avengers.

Tony groaned and squinted open his eyes. Sure enough, the ceiling of the Quinjet greeted him. He was flat on his back on a cot in the corner, straps across his chest holding him there securely. In his peripheral vision he could just make out an IV bag, pumping those blessed painkillers into his system.

His hand that wasn’t currently stuck with an IV fumbled at the strap across his chest until it eventually popped free. Swallowing another groan, he sat up and his eyes landed on Steve, who sat across from the cot.

Tony frowned. Steve was pale, his eyes lined with red, and his hair stuck up like he’d been running his hands through it. He stared into space, a thousand miles away, but then he jumped slightly and looked up at Tony.

Steve’s face fell and he swallowed with difficulty. “Tony.” His voice broke slightly.

Tony shifted, bandages constricting his movement. “Shedding a few tears for the near-loss of your benefactor?”

He expected Steve to react with a light-hearted eye roll or a flat look. Instead, his eyebrows twisted. “Tones.”

“What? What’s going on?”

Tony glanced around the Quinjet, taking in the eerie atmosphere. Steve wasn’t the only one that looked heartbroken—Sam had a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, still as a statue. Clint sat close to the pilot’s seat, his face buried in his hands. Natasha was turned away, her face hidden, but Tony knew that when a teammate was injured, she liked to fret. She wouldn’t normally hide herself away in the cockpit. Something was wrong.

That _something_ became very quickly apparent when Tony looked for a fifth face and didn’t find one.

“Where’s Peter?”

Sam looked up and exchanged glances with Steve. They were almost… apprehensive?

It all came back in a flash. Peter calling for Tony. The explosion. Peter’s comm cutting off.

Tony scrambled to his feet, yanking his IV out without a glance. He staggered slightly but couldn’t spare a thought for the pain pulsing through him as he looked wildly around the jet.

“Where is he? What happened? Where is he—”

Steve stood and grabbed Tony’s shoulders. “Tones…”

His temper snapped like a whip. “Don’t you bullshit me, Rogers. _Where is my kid?”_

Tony could see the heartbreak in Steve’s eyes, his unwillingness to answer in how his words dragged. “He was… in the warehouse when it exploded, Tony. Clint got there as fast as he could, but… the heat from the explosion—”

Tony’s heart shuddered.

Steve kept talking. “We sent SHIELD in, and they’re trying their best to find him but… it’s not looking good, Tony—”

“No.” Tony shoved past Steve and staggered towards the front of the Quinjet, ignoring how each step sent pain shooting through him and how his head swirled the longer he stayed standing. “Turn the jet around. We need to go back, I’m going to find him.” No-one moved. “ _Turn around, Romanoff._ What the fuck are we doing, flying away when Peter’s hurt? _Turn around!”_

“There’s no point!” snapped Clint. “We looked. Goddammit, don’t you think we looked?” His voice broke. “He’s not going to be there. He was caught in a fucking explosion, Tony. We _looked._ You were out for hours and we spent all that time looking. If he somehow survived the explosion he would have burned to death in the fucking fire. He’s _not. There.”_

Tony’s head swirled. _No._ “You didn’t have my suit. I can find him. You just turn this fucking jet around and I can find him!”

Natasha spun around. Her face was contorted in despair and streaked with tears. “ _You_ don’t have your suit!” she snarled. “You have a pile of very expensive scraps that SHIELD is currently documenting to ensure Hydra didn’t escape with any of the pieces. And no, we’re not going back, because after losing one teammate we, stupidly, decided to prioritize not losing another. So sit back down before you end up making your injuries worse.”

His legs were weak and the pain pulsing through his body intensified with each passing moment, but Tony didn’t care. “We can’t abandon him. That’s not what we fucking _do._ He’s my kid, you have to let me save him—”

“There’s no kid left to save.” That was Sam, his voice bitter and defeated. “He’s dead, Tony.”

His chest seized around the scar tissue in his sternum.

No. _No._

But he glanced around the Quinjet, taking in the faces of his teammates, their broken hearts worn on their sleeves. That self-hatred on their faces, which was the guilt they felt whenever someone got injured on a mission magnified by a hundred. His teammates who, logic told him, never gave up on anything or anyone. They couldn’t. If they gave up at the first hurdle, they wouldn’t be able to do their jobs.

If they couldn’t find Peter, then Peter wasn’t there to be found.

Peter was dead.

Tony’s face contorted and, with a roar of anguish, he drove his fist into the metal-plated wall of the Quinjet, leaving a streak of blood in his wake.

***

There was no body.

Tony had escaped from the medbay the minute the regeneration cradle had finished restoring the damage the missile and the Quinjet wall had inflicted on him. He’d had to dodge well-meaning attempts to stop him, but Tony had refused to sit in that blank, white room with nothing to distract him.

Not while SHIELD was searching for the body of his child.

Normally, Tony considered himself a realist. Pessimism led to spiraling thoughts, and optimism always struck Tony as slightly naïve.

Now, however, he clung to the tiniest spark of hope that everything would be okay.

Please. It had to be okay. _Please._

They’d had scares on missions before. Every team member had narrowly escaped death by only the skin of their teeth a couple times and had had to spend days in the medbay recovering. That fear that something serious had happened to Peter never dampened, but everything was always fine. Peter was always fine in the end. Like a rubber ball, he always bounced back.

He had to be okay. Well—he’d be hurt. Tony knew that. No-one could endure an explosion like that and come out the other side unscathed. There’d be a long recovery ahead of them, but Peter would be alright in the end. He _had_ to be.

But then Nick Fury walked in, his face somber, and the world screeched to a halt.

There was no body. The heat from the explosion and subsequent fire had reduced Tony’s kid to ash.

Tony barely made it to the bathroom before he vomited.

***

Tony’s head swirled. He reached for the bottle in his peripheral vision, but his fingers missed, and he knocked it over. Obscenely expensive whiskey spilled all over his desk and dripped off the edges.

“Fuck,” he slurred.

He felt disgusting, and he knew it was only a matter of time before he ended up vomiting all over the floor of his lab. Frankly, he didn’t fucking care. The door was locked, and he was all alone in here. There was no-one here to be bothered by it.

What he did care about was the whiskey he’d just spilled. Not because of its price, but because that was the last bottle he had on hand. To get any more he’d have to actually leave the lab, and leaving the lab meant running into Pepper, or Rhodey, or May. Tony couldn’t handle looking into May’s eyes right now. He’d failed her. He’d promised her he’d keep Peter safe. He’d promised May, and he’d promised Peter, and he’d lied to both of them.

Before Tony could plan how he was going to make it to the liquor cabinet without being spotted, his phone beeped in a happy little rhythm.

Tony blindly slapped his hand against the desk until he found it. Blearily, he checked the notification.

_9.30 pm. Happy birthday Peter :)_

He’d set the reminder for the sole purpose of embarrassing Peter, making sure he wouldn’t miss the opportunity to make an eye-roll worthy joke.

It was nine-thirty p.m. Peter should be in a bar in Quebec right now, enjoying his first drink while Tony surreptitiously kept an eye on him to make sure he didn’t overdo it.

They should be having fun.

Peter should be _alive._

When Tony finally broke down into sobs, they didn’t stop for a long, long time.

***

Days passed in a blur of drinking, crying, vomiting, passing out, and then starting the cycle anew. Tony barely left his lab as time blurred into nothing. He worked to distract himself, and he kept falling so deep into concentration that for brief moments, the pain stopped. It was just him and the metal, the coding, and the swirling in his head, and in those brief moments, everything was okay.

Then he’d glance up, taking a breath to talk to Peter—and reality crashed down upon him like a tsunami, anguish sweeping him away and forcing the air from his lungs until he was drowning in his own despair.

He was in the lab to hide, but not even the lab was safe.

He could lock the doors and drown his sorrows all he wanted, but Peter still found a way in. The room was too saturated with memories, even just of quiet, inconsequential afternoons spent working separately in one another’s company. Small moments that Tony had taken completely for granted as they happened, but that now he desperately yearned for.

It was in those moments where the pain was too much to bear that Tony found himself curled up on the floor, screaming in a desperate attempt to ease the heaviness in his gut, the tightness in his chest, the hollowness where his heart should be.

Fists banged on the door and voices called out for him. Tony ignored them. Steve, he faintly recognized, and Sam. Natasha. The people who had given up on his kid, had left him for dead.

More often, Pepper and Rhodey. Once, Happy. Tony ignored them too.

Eventually, however, the increasingly desperate voices demanding entry were replaced by footsteps, stirring Tony out of a drunken slumber.

He squinted his eyes open, blearily making out Rhodey’s distinctive gait as he strode across the room toward Tony. Tony pushed himself up with uncoordinated hands. He made it to what could just barely be considered upright, then slumped back against his desk in defeat.

“How’d you get ‘n,” he mumbled.

Rhodey crouched down beside him, leg braces whirring. “FRIDAY let me in. She doesn’t enjoy watching you slowly kill yourself any more than we do.”

Don’t fucking watch, then.

He chose not to say that aloud, but Rhodey sighed as though he had picked up on the sentiment.

“Tony, when was the last time you ate?” His voice was laced with concern.

Tony dug the heel of his hand into his eye as he struggled to think.

“...No,” he eventually managed.

Had that answered the question? What even was the question again?

Apparently he’d answered wrong, because Rhodey’s hands hooked under his armpits and dragged him to his feet.

“Right. You’re gonna get your sorry ass up off the floor and you’re gonna stop this, Tony. You’re gonna eat, and you’re gonna drink some water and get some sleep. This has gone on for too fucking long.”

Tony’s feet struggled to hold him up. He groaned in frustration. “Don’t wanna.”

“I don’t care. I know you want to drink yourself to a sad, pathetic death right now but I’m not gonna let you do that, Tony. You think Peter would be happy to see you like this?”

Peter. Tony wanted Peter. If Peter were here then maybe, just maybe the pain would stop.

He screwed up his face. “Fuck off,” he slurred. “Peter doesn’t care. Peter's not here. They let him die. You all let my kid die—"

The grip manhandling him to his feet began to drag him across the room. “I am not dealing with this Tony, not when you’re like this. You need to pull yourself together before you force me to plan another fucking funeral.”

Tony mumbled in protest, but his limbs were weakened from a lack of rest and food, so he was powerless to stop Rhodey from dragging him out the door, up the stairs, and into his bedroom.

Rhodey didn’t even bother turning on the light. Instead, he led Tony across the room and struggled to push him onto the bed. Gravity suddenly felt a lot stronger, and before Tony even knew what was happening, he was flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling as Rhodey removed his shoes.

“Stop,” Tony slurred. “Don’ wanna.”

He no longer saw darkness when he closed his eyes. Instead, images of Peter played like a slideshow on the back of his eyelids. Peter laughing, Peter smiling, Peter calling out for Tony in fear before being torn apart—

Tony physically flinched. He tried to push himself up, but Rhodey easily caught him and pushed him back down.

“Let me up,” Tony whined.

“No,” said Rhodey. He grabbed Tony’s shoulder to roll him over onto his side and then pulled the duvet up around him. “Come on. You’re gonna go to sleep and sober up, and when you wake up tomorrow, you’re gonna eat and drink something.” He gripped Tony’s shoulder to keep him in place. “Stop fighting. Just go to sleep.”

With reluctance, Tony realized that, now he was in bed, the bone-deep exhaustion was too great to ignore. Goddammit.

“F’ck you.”

“Yeah, yeah. Love you, too.”

Tony’s eyes slipped shut against his will. After a moment, Rhodey’s hand lifted from his shoulder. Footsteps padded away then back again, and a glass was set down on Tony’s nightstand, followed by a crackle of foil that was probably Rhodey setting out an aspirin. Fuck. Tony didn’t want to be taken care of. He wanted to waste away.

Rhodey sighed deeply. His footsteps padded away again, and Tony was left alone in the dark. Just how he didn’t want to be.

Immediately, it was an effort to keep his mind from wandering, from reminding him of the pain and his loss. He was so exhausted. Maybe he would be able to fall asleep before the intrusive thoughts arrived. Pepper always fell asleep within a moment of closing her eyes while Tony tossed and turned throughout the night. It wasn’t fair. He just wanted to sleep, he wanted to—

Something was hurting him.

Tony groaned, hauling himself over onto his back. The pain stopped. His hand felt down his pant leg until it found the offending object: his pen had been digging into his thigh.

“His” pen. Because of course he had a pen. He needed a pen on him at all times because he never knew when Peter would write to him. And he loved it when Peter wrote to him because it always cheered him up. The kid had such an enthusiasm for life that never failed to warm Tony’s heart.

 _Had_ had. Didn’t anymore. Because Peter was dead. His kid was dead and would never write to him again. Never again would Tony feel the tickling of a phantom pen on his skin, never again would he experience the happy excitement he felt as he rolled up his sleeve, that brief moment where he just couldn’t wait to see what his kid had written to him.

His kid. He wanted his kid. But his kid was gone. They couldn’t even find the body, so Tony couldn’t kiss him goodbye, couldn’t hug him one last time.

He hadn’t been there. Peter had called out for him, and he _hadn’t been there_.

 _“Fuck,”_ Tony spat. He writhed on the bed, undignified, as his grief coursed through him like physical pain. It tore through his muscles, through his mind, through every fiber of his being.

Your soulmate was part of you. One soul split between two bodies, the perfect complement to one another. And now half of Tony’s soul had been ripped from him, torn to pieces, and burned to ash. He felt it in every cell in his body. A hurting, an aching, a longing. Peter was _gone_ , and Tony would never be whole again.

He’d been thirty-six when Peter first wrote to him, thirteen years ago. How had he ever lived, without Peter in his heart and his words on his skin? What was even left of the world if Peter wasn’t in it? Every minute now felt like an eternal hell. He _needed_ Peter. He couldn’t carry on like this.

His eyes landed on his pen.

It took him a while to find his balance and push himself up into a sitting position. He sat there for a moment, the nib hovering over his skin. What was he going to say to his kid, whom he’d failed? What could he _possibly_ say?

_Peter._

_Petey, Petey, my Petey. I’m so sorry._

He couldn’t see through his tears. When had he started crying again?

_I’m so sorry, Petey. I should have protected you. I promised I’d protect you and I didn—_

Ink streaked across his arm as Tony broke off with a sob. He pressed a hand against his mouth, teeth digging in so deeply as to break the skin. The taste of copper exploded across his tongue, but he couldn’t care less.

_Please come back to me, Petey. I need you._

But the words sunk in with no-one to read them.

In a fit of anger, Tony hurled the pen across the room. It didn’t even shatter, merely bounced off the far wall and clattered as it hit the floorboards. With a cry of anguish Tony curled in on himself, hugging his arm to his chest.

It was pointless. Peter wasn’t here to read the words. What did it matter what he said and how he worded it? Why was he worrying about saying the right thing to a kid who was torn limb from limb in an explosion? A kid who, just a few days ago, had been excited to turn eighteen and have his first drink while they were in Canada. A kid who was too good to just steal some from Tony’s liquor cabinet or May’s wine rack, because he was Spider-Man, and Spider-Man had to be a good example.

No-one even knew who Spider-Man was, as Tony had pointed out. For all the public knew, Spider-Man was already well over the age of twenty-one. But Peter had insisted that he would know, and his moral code had always been stronger than Tony’s.

His kid. His sweet, smart, caring kid, who died because Tony and the Avengers and SHIELD didn’t do their jobs. They should have made sure the building was safe, should never have let Peter go in before they’d ensured he would be safe.

Tony clutched his arm, thumb stroking the inside of his wrist. It had been so long since Tony had gone more than a few hours without Peter’s handwriting there, more beautiful and meaningful than any tattoo he could have ever designed. But now it would be forever empty of his kid’s handwriting, and Tony’s writing would just sit there, refusing to sink in until it washed off in the shower—

Wait.

Slowly, barely daring to even breathe, Tony uncurled and sat up, arm still held close to his chest. For a moment he was still, heart pounding in his ears, until he found the courage to turn his wrist over.

His skin was clear. Nothing was written there, the words he had written not moments ago completely gone.

The words had sunk in.

Tony was going mad. He was—that wasn’t—

He threw himself across the room and collapsed onto the floor next to the pen. Thank God it hadn’t broken when he threw it. He gripped it with shaking hands and brought the nib to his skin.

_Peter?_

And there he sat, frozen with fear. He stared at his jittery handwriting, so poorly written that it almost reminded Tony of Peter’s shaky lettering when he had first been learning to write.

He stared, and he stared, and he stared, until eventually—

The word disappeared.

“Oh,” Tony choked. _“Oh.”_

He scrambled to his feet, his drunken mind forcing his limbs into motion before it had really finished processing what he had just seen.

Tony didn’t know where Rhodey or Pepper or May or the Avengers were, or if they were asleep—it was dark outside the windows, but he didn’t know what time it was—but the alcohol and hope and fear led him through the corridors of the penthouse. He heard voices coming from the kitchen and stumbled in their direction.

He lost his balance just as he arrived at the threshold of the kitchen and caught himself heavily against the wall. The sound drew attention—it was Rhodey, and Steve, and Clint, and they looked up at him. Their faces immediately soured.

Rhodey walked towards him, eyes stern. “I thought you passed out. For fuck’s sake, Tony—”

His hands grabbed at Tony, ready to lead him back to his room, but Tony pushed them away. “Rhodey, it’s Peter. It’s Peter.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Rhodey, pained. “You’re not the only one here who’s grieving, Tony, and you’re making this a hell of a lot harder for the rest of us—”

“No, no, listen to me,” Tony said, dodging Rhodey’s hands. “Peter’s—Peter’s alive.”

Finally, Rhodey’s hands stilled. Rhodey stared at Tony for a moment before he grimaced in pain.

“Tony…”

“No, no. _Watch.”_

His pen was still in his hand, and he stumbled over to the island where Steve and Clint were. He laid his arm out on the cold surface and, after ensuring everyone was watching, wrote _Peter_ on his skin.

The atmosphere in the room was tense as Rhodey, Steve and Clint stared at Tony’s arm. Tony instead watched their faces, and he caught the exact moment their expressions turned from skeptical to horrified.

“Oh, God,” whispered Steve.

Rhodey’s hand patted Tony’s shoulder. “Tony…”

“No. No fucking way,” said Clint, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms. “I saw that building blow up. I was the first one there. The kid was _gone._ How can he be alive?”

Alive. Alive. His kid was _alive._ He must be, because the words sunk in, and they didn’t do that if there was no-one for them to go to. Tony had been intimately, painfully familiar with that fact those thirty-six years before Peter.

The words had somewhere to go to, which meant his kid was alive.

“I don’t—I don’t know,” Tony stuttered.

“We’ll solve it,” said Steve. His jaw was set with determination. “Wherever he is, we’re going to find him.”

And with that, Tony collapsed, his exhaustion and grief and stress finally catching up with him. Rhodey struggled to hold him upright, and faintly, Tony felt embarrassed, but he was beyond caring. He’d put his body through hell, but it didn’t matter. Only one thing mattered: Peter.

Peter, his kid, who was out there somewhere. Alive, still.

 _Come back to me,_ Tony had begged. And then Peter did.

***

The next few days reminded Tony painfully of several memories he’d much rather have purged from his mind.

The first being those two blurry days when Peter had been kidnapped. Just like back then, Tony and May sat together in the penthouse living room, too emotionally distraught to be of use, as the Avengers and SHIELD bustled around them. Only this time, there was no Ben, and maybe that was why everything felt a lot bleaker as they waited for the lead that would bring their child home.

Tony never wanted to be in this position again.

And as he sat, side by side with May to fill the place of Ben in providing comfort, his mind tormented him with images of hot deserts and dark caves and cold metal pressing against his sternum. They knew Peter was out there, somewhere, but he was unable to write back. It reminded Tony of those three months he spent in that cave, heart breaking every time he read the sad messages Peter had written to him, unable to write back despite how much he’d yearned to.

Peter, however, wouldn’t have any reassuring messages from Tony to read. Natasha had firmly vetoed the idea.

“Think about it, Tony,” she’d snapped after confiscating his pen. “Whoever has him went to great lengths to fake his death. So long as they think we think he’s dead, we’ll have the upper hand. You writing to Peter will only tip them off that we know he’s alive.”

Tony’s gut reaction had been anger—how dare she tell him he couldn’t write to his child, who was all alone and likely terrified, to comfort him? But reluctantly, he had to admit she was right.

It took only half a day for SHIELD to narrow down a possible location. Tony joined the rest of the team for the mission to a half-decayed Hydra base in a remote corner of Quebec’s taiga, but it was ultimately fruitless. Peter wasn’t there.

Neither was he at the second base they raided.

Nor the third, or the fourth, or however many after that. Tony lost count.

SHIELD considered the missions successes, as the Avengers had successfully taken down several Hydra bases. To them, it didn’t matter that they’d failed the primary mission objective and Peter was still missing.

Pretty soon after that, Tony stopped going on missions.

He couldn’t handle the repeated disappointment, the building stress as they infiltrated bases, the hope that this one, _this_ one would finally end their search. The inevitable heartbreak when it wasn’t.

It felt awfully like giving up on Peter, after he’d berated the other Avengers for doing the same thing. So to make up, he helped with the search in his own way. He joined the SHIELD agents that had set up camp in the penthouse lounge, analyzing data from his satellite and pinpointing potential Hydra hideouts. It was intellectually stimulating and kept his mind off the fact that, with every passing minute, the torture Peter could have faced at Hydra’s hands increased exponentially.

Whenever the leads came to a dead end, or they were waiting on the Avengers while they raided a base, Tony made sure to comfort May. He wasn’t the most comfortable talking about his feelings, but then, neither was May. They both preferred to put on a brave face—but sometimes, May still needed someone to lean on.

Tony did, too, but he wasn’t as willing to admit that.

They fell into a routine: hacking into databases they probably shouldn’t be hacking into, sending a potential location to the Avengers, and then sitting back and waiting anxiously for news. Tony and May would check in with one another, and half the Tower would check in with Tony—he didn’t get the impression he’d been forgiven for locking himself in his lab for what he had been told was five days. The routine became familiar.

Until everything changed.

It happened over lunch one day. Pepper had ordered in for May, Tony, and Happy, but hadn’t been able to stay for lunch herself. She was busy both overseeing Stark Industries and dealing with the media. The public had noticed Spider-Man’s disappearance and were demanding to know where their protector had gone.

 _“Spider-Man is currently dealing with a pressing personal issue,”_ was the official story. _“He is greatly sorry that he has been unable to patrol these past few weeks but he will be returning to Queens as soon as he is able.”_

A “personal issue”. Tony had scoffed when he had first heard it, but the public accepted it. They posted their well-wishes for Spider-Man online and went on with their days, never once doubting their hero’s eventual return.

Tony envied their blind trust.

They were in the middle of their lunch, Happy trying his best to make light conversation with an exhausted Tony and May—bless him, it really wasn’t his strong suit—when Sam burst into the kitchen, panting heavily as if he had been running.

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to.

It felt as though it took an hour to reach the medbay, Tony’s sense of time completely warped as his heart beat out of time. The medbay was crowded with Avengers, none of whom appeared to be hurt, gathered around a closed door—a clear sign from the doctors that they were not to be disturbed.

“How is he?” May demanded, her voice strained.

Steve stepped forwards and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “It’s hard to tell,” he admitted. “He’s been unconscious since we found him. There was… a lot of blood, but we couldn’t tell how badly he’s hurt on the Quinjet.”

“They hurt him?” May breathed.

Steve nodded somberly. “From what we’ve gathered, they intended to study his enhancements in an attempt to replicate them.”

Both Tony and May chose not to dwell on the implications of _that._ Peter was safe, and whatever Hydra had had planned for him didn’t matter now.

“Thank you,” Tony said, “for bringing him home.”

Steve shook his head. “You don’t need to thank us, Tony.”

 _I do,_ Tony thought bitterly. He hadn’t been there for his kid. He’d chosen his own comfort, his own mental health over Peter’s physical health and safety. Peter was his _kid,_ and his needs should always come first.

Tony hadn’t been there for his child, his _soulmate,_ when he really needed him.

At the lack of any news, the Avengers slowly peeled away to shower and eat. May and Tony were left alone in the medbay, waiting with bated breath for word on Peter’s condition.

When Helen finally stepped out of the doors to Peter’s room, face stony, Tony’s heart skipped a beat.

But then she spotted May and Tony and smiled a small, professional smile.

“He’s going to be okay,” she said.

A weight like a collapsed building lifted from Tony’s shoulders.

“He only has superficial surface wounds,” Helen continued, “which under normal circumstances would have healed overnight. However, given the lack of any burns or broken bones, I suspect that his healing factor worked overtime to heal him from any injuries sustained in the explosion. As a result, his healing factor is struggling with the injuries he has received since.

“Of course, I can’t know for sure until I have observed him overnight at the very least. We’ve set him up with an IV to try and replenish his strength, but I suspect he may be in for a very long recovery.”

May’s breath hitched. “But he’ll be alright?”

Helen nodded. “His condition is stable. He’s currently sleeping off a sedative—not one of ours, that is, but the one he was under when the Avengers found him, so unfortunately I can’t give a timeframe for when he’ll wake up.”

“That’s okay,” said Tony. “We’ll keep watch.”

***

And keep watch they did, as the sun set and day turned to night. Tony and May hadn’t spoken much since Peter’s birthday, first because Tony had locked himself in the lab, and then because they were both too worried about Peter to stomach much conversation. But now with Peter safely beside them, if bandaged up and hooked up to various machines, they could _finally_ relax.

“First thing the little shit ever did to me was make me hit my head,” said Tony fondly. “He wrote to me for the first time when I was rolled under a car to work on the engine and made me jump. A pipe straight to the frontal lobe.”

May giggled, drunk on her own happiness. “That’s my boy.”

Tony shook his head. “You know what? That’s about when all the superhero shit started to happen. Don’t tell Pepper or she’ll blame my poor decision-making on that hit on the head, and then _I’ll_ have to blame Peter.”

“Oh, don’t worry. He’d love that.”

“Good point. Let’s definitely not tell him. Imagine his ego if he found out.”

“He gets the ego from you, you know.”

“Damn right he does.”

May stifled a yawn and adjusted her hand where she had slipped it into Peter’s. “I don’t care how out of control his ego gets. I’m just happy he’s home.”

“Me too,” said Tony softly, drinking in the sight of Peter. His kid’s face was bruised and cut up in places, and sunken in at the cheeks, but Tony had spent the best part of a week thinking he would never be able to see his kid ever again. He’d take a few bruises and cuts over _nothing_ any day.

May yawned again. Tony raised an eyebrow.

“You can sleep,” he offered. “I’ll be here to watch him.”

May shook her head. “I’ll stay awake.”

But over the next few minutes, she took longer and longer blinks until, eventually, her eyes slipped closed and didn’t open again.

Tony grabbed one of the spare blankets the nurses had left out and spread it over May, careful not to wake her. There were dark shadows under her eyes, and she’d been through hell just the same as Tony had over the last few weeks. She needed the rest.

Choosing to ignore the logic that stated, in that case, Tony also needed sleep, he sank back into his seat at Peter’s side. He took the kid’s hand, careful not to disturb the needle in the back of his hand.

“Just me now, kiddo,” he whispered. “Wanna wake up before I end up passing out, too?”

Peter, of course, didn’t answer.

With a sigh, Tony shifted into a more comfortable position, pulled out his phone, and settled in for the long haul.

He pulled up his inbox, answering email one-handedly as his eyelids slowly grew heavier and heavier. Tony was used to staying awake well beyond his body’s limits, but normally his feats of human perseverance were aided by the strongest coffee he could find at any given moment. He wasn’t willing to leave Peter, just in case, and the nearest coffee was at the other end of the medbay in the nurses’ breakroom.

Instead, he sat there as his blinks grew longer, and he felt exhaustion slowly take hold of him—

Peter’s hand twitched where Tony grasped it.

Tony’s head snapped up, sleepiness forgotten. Peter’s face screwed up in pain before, with a quiet groan, he blinked open his eyes. He looked around in panic for a moment until his eyes landed on Tony’s face.

“T—Tony?” he whispered, voice gravelly. And yet it sounded like music to Tony’s ears.

“It’s me,” Tony said, scooting closer. He set down his phone to clutch at Peter’s hands with both his own and rubbed his thumb across Peter’s knuckles, careful not to disturb any of the tubes. “You’re okay, kid. You’re safe. We’ve got you. May’s here, too.”

Peter glanced to his left, where May was sleeping on the couch pushed up against the wall. After a moment, his whole body relaxed, and a slightly hysterical laugh burst from his throat.

“Shit,” Peter gasped, struggling to push himself higher up against his pillows.

Tony helped him, a gentle touch under his kid’s elbows. “Been through hell, huh?” _You and me both, kid._

Peter smiled weakly. “I think Hydra decided I wasn’t personally invested enough and decided to give me a real reason to want to take them down.”

His smile pulled at the butterfly bandages holding his face together. Only Peter could manage to find the humor in having been held captive and experimented on.

Tony brushed a finger against Peter’s cheek, pressing down a bandage that had peeled up, then ruffled Peter’s hair. “You alright, kid? Any pain? Or do you want some water?”

“Some water would be nice,” he croaked.

Obliging, Tony poured Peter a cup from the pitcher on the nightstand. He helped Peter drink until the kid gestured that he’d had enough.

Peter screwed up his eyebrows as Tony placed the cup back down. “I don’t… I don’t remember you guys coming for me. What happened?”

Tony went to answer, but then— _I don’t know_ , he realized. Guilt overcame him as he stared into Peter’s innocent, questioning eyes. He didn’t know what happened when Peter was finally rescued—because he hadn’t been there. Shit, he _hadn’t been there_ when they finally found his kid.

“I… I’m sorry,” Tony blurted.

Peter frowned. “…What?”

“I’m… I’m so sorry, kid. I should have been there.”

Peter still just looked confused.

“Peter, I…” Tony ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know if you remember the explosion, but… we thought you were _dead_ , kid. And even after we found out you weren’t, we went on so many missions trying to find you, and we failed every single time. And eventually I just… stopped going on the missions. And I’m so, so sorry for that, Petey. I should have been there, I shouldn’t have… given up, like that. I’m so fucking sorry. You deserve a way better soulmate than me, kid.”

Peter looked, if anything, even more confused. “What?”

“I can’t tell you what happened because I wasn’t there,” Tony confessed. “Steve was the one that found you. Shit, kid. I’m sorry. You deserve someone who isn’t going to just give up on you like I did.”

“That’s not true.” Peter shook his head.

“You do—”

“No, I mean—I know you didn’t give up on me,” Peter said, incredulous. “And I couldn’t ask for anyone better than you, Tony.”

Self-hatred stirred in Tony’s gut. “I did. I wasn’t the one that found you.”

“I know, and I’m thankful to Steve,” said Peter, “but Steve’s not here right now, is he?”

Tony blinked, Peter’s point flying right over his head. Peter sighed and found Tony’s hand again, intertwining their fingers.

“I’m not worried about _who_ found me—although I’m glad _someone_ did. I wasn’t awake then, so it didn’t matter. But I am awake now, and you’re here with me. That’s all that matters to me.”

Tony shook his head and brushed Peter’s hair out of his face. “You deserve a better soulmate, Pete. You always have, and you always will. Someone who could keep you safe and out of trouble. Or someone who could actually teach you something.” He smiled, trying to lighten the mood. “Cause if you learn anything from me, I swear to God—”

“You don’t actually think that, do you?” Peter asked, and he sounded strangely… upset?

Tony blinked. “No?” he tried.

Peter wrinkled his nose. “I don’t want anyone else to be my soulmate. You’ve done so much for me, Tony! You helped me become a hero, and you’ve taught me so much—lab days are the highlight of my week! But it doesn’t matter, anyway, because you don’t need to _do_ anything for me. You just being here’s enough.”

He took a deep breath and squeezed Tony’s hand. “I wasn’t awake very often, in the Hydra base. But whenever I was, I wasn’t scared, because I knew you’d find me, Tony. I trust you.”

“But I didn’t find you. Steve did. The other Avengers could have helped you become a hero, and they would have done a hell of a lot better a job at it than I did. Or have you forgotten the Staten Island Ferry incident?”

“That doesn’t _matter._ I don’t want anyone else to be my soulmate. I love _you._ ”

Tony stilled, staring into Peter’s unwavering gaze, surprised when the only thing he found there was utter sincerity.

For years, Tony had struggled with self-doubt whenever he thought about Peter. Peter deserved way better than Tony, and Tony sure as hell didn’t deserve Peter. The kid was amazing—so bright, so kind, so loving. All the things that Tony struggled to be, even with the people he loved most. He didn’t deserve the kid.

And it was difficult to be told any differently.

But this was Peter saying it, and he knew Peter was too good to lie to him like that. Peter truly, genuinely believed that he and Tony were perfectly matched as soulmates.

Maybe… maybe Tony was tired of the self-hatred.

He’d mourned Peter. He’d genuinely believed his kid had died a horrible, violent death, and he’d sobbed and cried and begged for his kid to come back so that he would have one last chance to hug him and kiss him.

Tony had what he’d wished for, right here in front of him. Peter was alive, and whole, and mostly healthy.

And maybe Tony didn’t want to waste this second chance doubting whether or not he was worthy of his own happiness.

He sniffed. “Shit. I love you too, kid.”

And then he pulled Peter into his arms and planted a kiss against his curls. He squeezed Peter tight—taking care not to hurt him—and relished the fact that his kid was _here._ He was safe, and happy, and he clung to Tony like the safest place in the world was right there in Tony’s arms.

Happiness swelled in Tony’s chest as he buried his face in Peter’s hair. Time slowed, and Tony wished he could live in that moment forever; Peter and Tony, safely wrapped up in one another’s arms.

He couldn’t have asked for a better soulmate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...and it's done!! Writing this has been a surprisingly huge undertaking (I definitely didn't intend for it to end up this damn long, as you can probably tell by how every chapter was a little bit longer than the one before it...). I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who's read, left kudos, bookmarked, or especially commented. Your comments are all amazing and they gave me the motivation I needed to get this damn thing finished when it really didn't want to cooperate!
> 
> And I may or may not have a fluffy follow-up one-shot planned... watch this space.
> 
> If you enjoyed I'd love to talk to you on [Tumblr](https://opal-earrings.tumblr.com/) and once again, thank you for reading! <3


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